Part 6
Out of itself does science provide satisfaction for the idea of conservation in the cosmogony of energetics; this it does, however, by furnishing not _actual_ energies but only the _reactions_ of energies.
An _actual_ conservation, and therewith an _actual_ world-view is furnished by the Buddha alone when he points out that every living being is a something self-sustaining; in other words, that there is no such thing as an “_I_,” considered as identical with itself, as a unity in itself.
The same, to be sure, is said by every school of criticism. Hume and modern psychology say so with unequivocal clearness, but none of them go beyond negation. They confine themselves to Socratic knowledge. Alone the Buddha says, “I not only am aware that I am no true _I_, as a unity in itself, but I also know what it is that I am. And that this has really been comprehended by me,--this I prove _in my own person_. For, from the moment that I comprehended myself as a process sustaining itself from beginninglessness down to the present hour by its own volitional activities, all volitional activities have wholly ceased in me. A new up-welling of _in-force_, any further self-charging of the _I_-process, has no more place in me. I know; this is my last existence. When it breaks up, there is no more Kamma there to take fresh hold in any new location, be it in heavenly, be it in earthly worlds. The beginningless process of combustion is expiring, is coming to an end of itself, like the flame that is fed by no more oil.”
This thought which finds expression in the four propositions concerning suffering and the Nibbāna teaching, sums up the significance of Buddhism for morality and religion, and its amplification, therefore, belongs to the successor to this volume. Here it is only interesting to us from the epistemological point of view, _i.e._ in so far as _it makes ignorance as to oneself the antecedent condition of all life_. For--
I sustain my own existence through the perpetually renewed up-welling of volitional activities. It is possible for these to spring up again and again only so long as an object for my willing is present, _i.e._ so long as the delusion of identity is not put an end to. The moment any being arrives at the insight that there are in truth no identities--that there are nothing but flickering, flaring processes of combustion, which are one thing when I crave for them, another when I stretch forth my hand to seize them, and yet again another when I have seized them and hold them fast, he stops short, begins to reflect; and in reflection the blind impulse to live is sapped and weakened. The knowledge is borne in upon him: “It is not worth the seizing.”
So long as I take a glittering object in the grass for a diamond, I will clutch at it, scuffle for it--mayhap enter on a life-and-death struggle to obtain it. But the moment I perceive, “It is a dewdrop in which a sunbeam is reflected,” I trouble myself no more about it. I know “A shake, a gust of wind--and all is over!”
So is it with the genuine thinker in face of the world and its values, whether they be called wife or child, money or possessions, fame or honour, family or home. One clear, piercing, scrutinizing glance is more than they will bear. To the penetrating mind, the wretchedness of transiency is everywhere manifest--he turns away--it is not worth while!
To Sakka, the king of the gods, the Buddha imparts the following instruction:--
“Then, chief of the gods, a monk hears: ‘All that is, when clung to, falls short.’ And when, chief of the gods, a monk has heard: ‘All that is, when clung to, falls short,’ he closely observes each and every thing. In the close observation of each and every thing he sees into each and every thing. And seeing into each and every thing, whatsoever sensation he experiences, whether pleasurable or unpleasurable, or neither pleasurable nor unpleasurable, in all these sensations he abides in the insight that they are transient, so that he cares naught for them, ceases from them, renounces them. And abiding as respects these sensations in such insight, he clings to nothing whatsoever in all the world. Clinging to nothing in the world, he is free from fear. Free from fear he attains to his own extinction of delusion.”[11]
This insight that ignorance as to one’s own self is the antecedent condition of all existence, is formulated by the Buddha in the so-called “Causal Chain.”[12]
It is not the intention of this book to furnish a fully rounded statement of Buddhism, and so I am at liberty here to confine myself to what is necessary for our immediate purpose. To attempt to deal in detail with all the many mistakes that have here been made by western expositors would require a whole book to itself.
The Causal Chain consists of twelve links, on which account it is also alluded to under the name of the “Twelve Nidānas.”
The twelve links of the chain are: 1. Ignorance (Avijjā); 2. Predispositions, Tendencies (Sankhāra); 3. Consciousness (Viññāṇa); 4. Individuality (Nāma-rūpa); 5. The seat of sense; 6. Contact; 7. Sensation; 8. Thirst of life (Taṇhā); 9. Clinging (Upādāna); 10. Becoming (Bhava); 11. Birth (Jāti); 12. A Complex consisting of the essential ingredients of all existence--namely, old age, death, misery, lamentation, sorrow, grief, and despair.
This “Chain” is translated by the great majority of occidental expositors of Buddhism thus: “Out of Ignorance arise the Predispositions. Out of the Predispositions arises Consciousness,” and so forth.
Such a translation is at one and the same time incorrect as regards the wording and misleading as regards the meaning. For here the separate links of the chain are placed with regard to each other in the relationship of cause and effect, in the purely physical sense in which the two represent a following after one another. But in order to have a pure following after one another of cause and effect, there are needed artificial preconditions such as physics puts for herself when she works with “bodies,”--that is, with fixed magnitudes complete in themselves. Actuality, however, knows nothing of any such things. Actuality knows only processes which at every moment of their existence represent a new biological value.
Only where “bodies” in this purely physical sense are presumed to exist, can one speak of a following after one another of cause and effect;--a mode of representing matters that is ridiculed by men of insight among physicists themselves. E. Mach, for example, makes fun of it in the humorous phrase: “Upon a dose of cause there follows a dose of effect”; whereby, to be sure, himself, and with him the whole of modern positivism whose mouthpiece he is,[13] falls into the opposite extreme, inasmuch as he seeks to substitute for the conception of causality of scholasticism--the following after one another of cause and effect--dependence outside of time, as represented by the concept of mathematical function.
In sooth, one position is as far removed from actuality as the other. Every causal relation existing in actuality runs its course on the lines--to take an example--of seed and tree, where the causal relation is neither a pure, unmixed following after one another, nor yet a lying alongside one another outside of time, but a combination of following after and lying alongside one another.
This combination of succession and juxtaposition is implied, moreover, in the Pāḷi word, _paccayā_, used to express the connecting together of the separate links. Verbally correct and true to the meaning, the Causal Chain would be translated as follows:--
“Ignorance must be present in order that Tendencies may come to pass. Tendencies must be present in order that Viññāṇa may come to pass;--which latter here signifies Consciousness as passing-over Kamma; for this passing-over Kamma does not admit being spoken of otherwise than in the form of consciousness. This passing-over Kamma must be present in order that the fashioning of a new Individuality may come to pass. This latter must be present in order that a referring back of all the Six Kinds of Sense-Impressions to myself may come to pass. This must be present in order that Contact, an approaching on my part to things whether physical or mental, may come to pass. Contact must be present in order that Sensation, this in order that Craving, this in order that Clinging, this in order that the perpetually repeated, new upspringing of the _I_-process may come about which here is disintegrated in the stage of Passing-over (Bhava) and the final result (Jāti),[14] the Coming-into-manifestation of a new Kammic impulsion _within_ this my personality; whereupon the last link follows as a natural consequence.”
The Causal Chain is the best touchstone by which to test whether a person is really capable of following the Buddha-thought or not. If he is incapable of doing so, he comes by a sad fall at the “violation” of the law of contradictories which follows from _Jāti_ being taken as _Birth_ in the grossly vulgar acceptation of the word; and cannot make out how an individual who has long since been active as such, should only subsequently be “born.”
The other absurdity which necessarily arises when one interprets the links in the vulgar sense as a following after one another of cause and effect, is this: that in this case Ignorance is installed as a sort of blind end, and so the way is opened for the introduction of all sorts of cosmological speculations to which our men of learning are only the more inclined that they generally come from Sanskrit to Pāḷi, or, what in substance amounts to the same thing, from the Upanishads to the Suttas.
In the Vedanta, “Ignorance” is a given thing in itself, an incomprehensible; it is the point on which, for the genuine thinker, the whole system comes to grief. In Buddhism Ignorance is not anything that is given in itself. Its presence in everything that lives has no other basis than that all that lives, by the mere fact of its existence shows that it must have been compounded with Ignorance, since otherwise the _I_-process concerned would have been bound to have collapsed, just in the same way that everything that has being, by its very existence shows that up to now it must have been fertile, capable of propagation, since otherwise it could not be here. As little as on that account “fertility” is a given in itself, just as little is Ignorance a given in itself.
When the Buddha in the formula of causality places “Ignorance” at the head of his world-system, makes it the antecedent condition of all individual existence, he does nothing but formulate _abstractly_ what in the Kamma-teaching he gives _actually_--the beginninglessness of the _I_-process. To the question, “What is the adequate cause of living beings? How is it ever possible for the _I_ to come about?” he gives in the Kamma-teaching, the answer, “through willing,” and in the Causal Chain the answer, “through ignorance as to one’s self.” Both answers bear the one import,--this, namely, that anterior to the present _I_ ever and again stands the _I_, running backward in a series that knows no beginning, and never has known a beginning. Whether I say, “A being is here in virtue of his volitional activities, of his Kamma,” or, “He is here in virtue of his Ignorance,” there exists no other distinction between these two expressions than between the two phrases: “light is present,” and, “shadow is present.” Shadow in itself means nothing save only that light is present. Shadow is light itself, but in empty abstract form. In the selfsame way Ignorance of itself means nothing save only that will is present. Ignorance is will itself, but in empty abstract form.
In the intuition of the beginninglessness of the individual, both series--the actual as the Kamma-teaching, and the abstract as the teaching concerning ignorance--merge into one.
Buddhism is the teaching of actuality. The actual is only what I myself experience--I, the _I_-process.
The Buddha teaches me to comprehend myself, and only as a function of this self-comprehension does there follow a comprehension of the external world.
A view of the world based solely upon a comprehension of one’s self perforce lies beyond reach of any inductive procedure; the question, therefore, arises:--
By what means and method is such a doctrine to be brought within reach of others?
VI
BUDDHISM AS A WORKING HYPOTHESIS
Each with its own world-conception, faith and science alike, are representatives of a knowledge.
_Faith_ stands for a “knowledge in itself,”--the knowledge, in fact, of a something divine. _Science_ seeks to work her way to a knowledge placed in “law”; a labour, to be sure, with which she remains for ever “on the way.” The _Buddha_, on the contrary, obtains his world-conception, not by the creation of any new knowledge _but by bringing to an end a beginningless ignorance_.
Now we moderns are accustomed to look upon science as the mediator betwixt us and truth,--as the high-priest of truth, so to speak, from whose hands we receive the sacred host. With the position which every science takes up towards nature--a rejection in principle of everything not perceptible to sense, implying thereby the potential comprehensibility of the phenomena of life--its methods also are definitely determined; they are the methods of _induction_ and _deduction_. Both amount to comprehending an occurrence by roundabout ways through other occurrences; or, what is the same thing, to finding the adequate cause of one phenomenon of life in other phenomena of life.
Now there is one unique thing in the world with reference to which this possibility is absent--something that I never can approach by roundabout paths; it is my own consciousness. For, this I myself am; and where I am, thither it is impossible for me to go, though I seek so to do by the cunningest and craftiest of psycho-physiological by-ways.
The whole Buddha-thought has its roots in discernment as to the essential nature of consciousness. This discernment, however, is itself a form of consciousness, thus, cannot be come at by any kind of path, by any kind of method; _it cannot be mediate_.
Here the scientist will say, “If a discernment be not mediate--that is, derived from experience--then it must be immediate. But that means it is an illumination, a matter of faith. And thus the whole of Buddhism, with its teaching of Kamma, differs only in name not in nature from religions founded upon revelations.”
Such a conclusion, however, would be false. There offers a third alternative.
Science conceals within herself a domain in regard to which it is with her much as it is with us all in regard to the sexual commerce of daily life. We are proud of our children but we are shame-faced over the act that has brought them into the world. Even so is it with science in respect of those of her children that have not originated as homunculi in the reagent tube, but have really been begotten--_her intuitions_. One is proud of them, but one never rests until one has methodized them, put the inductive smock-frock on them, and brought them into tune with the tone of conversation of science.
Galileo’s law of falling bodies, the Newtonian law, Robert Mayer’s law of the conservation of energy, are all intuitions. But many another flash of insight to which science has denied the status of legitimate child, contemning them instead for bastards, are like intuitions--such as the phrenology of Gall, Hahnemann’s idea of _similia similibus curantur_, which has blossomed into the methods of treatment so fraught with blessing to humanity, of homœopathy, and many others.
All these intuitions have this in common that they have not been abstracted from a duly defined number of experiments. They are each an _experience_ in the domain of cognition that has come to pass by reason of a unique impulse. They are each a process of mental growth, mental development that has been evoked by an impulse of a special character. As all vegetable growth demands an impulsion, a provocation, so also does that mental growth which science names “intuition.” One does not arrive at an intuition by the paths of induction-deduction; one _grows_ into it. Were the power of comprehending things so fashioned that it could lay hold of, work up, and assimilate a definite impulsion, as result there would blossom forth such a sequence as could never be reached by the path of experiment. A single impulsion, the lighter coloured blood of the venous circulation in the tropics, gave Robert Mayer his intuition. A single impulsion, a remark in Cullen’s _Materia Medica_, about China and its characteristic of giving rise to intermittent fever, supplied Hahnemann with his intuition. A single impulse--so it is said--a falling apple, furnished Newton with his intuition; and so on through many examples.
Such an intuition is the Buddha-thought also. The sight of an aged man, a sick person, a corpse--so says the legend--gave rise in the Buddha to that impulsion which, worked up by him, and proceeding to bud and bloom, drove him forth from the home of his fathers, forced him into asceticism, eventuating finally the ripe fruit of the Buddha-teaching.
The Buddha-teaching is a pure intuition, is _the_ intuition, and proves itself such in that any attempt to treat of it after the methods of science, to master it inductively, is impossible.
Though I lay the Buddha-teaching before the ablest scientific man that ever lived, it must always remain for him an entirely insipid thing if his intellectual faculty is not in such a condition as to vibrate in harmony with it, react to the “provocation” offered, work it up, assimilate it.
As little as it can be proven that a given food is nourishing for me--it can only be offered, and I myself must eat, whereupon the food of itself proves its own nutritive quality or its worthlessness--just as little can the truth of the Buddha-thought be proven: it can only be offered, and I myself must try it, whereupon the thought is either worked up as nourishing stimulus or rejected as entirely worthless. Here holds good the old saying: “_Sapere aude!_”
The Buddha-thought is powerless in respect of a mind to which it is not assimilable, as also is that mind in respect of the Buddha-thought.
In respect of the teaching it is with such minds as it is with many desert regions of the torrid zone in regard to rain: their overheated soil prevents the rain-clouds that pass over them year after year from discharging their burden. They receive no rain, not because they are soaking with water, but because they are too parched and dry. They come under the law of the _circulus vitiosus_. Because they are rainless no vegetation can come; and because they are without vegetation no rain can come. Here there is nothing to be done but wait patiently until some time in the course of the beginningless, incalculable play of world-events a seed sprouts, a drop of water falls, and so a happier circle sets in which, with the increasing vegetation, increases the capacity for drawing down rain, and with the increasing rain-fall increases the capacity for bringing forth vegetation. In the selfsame way, in the case of those minds that are overheated with theories, there is nothing to be done but wait patiently, point out and point out again and again, until one day in the course of the beginningless, incalculable play of world-events some first grain of the teaching sprouts, some first drop of genuine insight falls.
Strictly speaking, no intuition, whether appertaining to the Buddha or to science, can be proven. All so-called proofs are surreptitious proofs, as is most clearly to be seen in the case of the scientific proof of the law of the conservation of energy. The value of an intuition admits of being measured only by its usefulness as a working hypothesis.
And so with respect to the Buddha-thought, the only thing to be done is to ask: “Of what use, of what service is it as a working hypothesis?”
If here it is of any service, a man will place confidence in it. If a man places confidence in it, he will reflect upon it. If he reflects upon it, he allows his thoughts to dwell upon it. If he allows his thoughts to dwell upon it, the more readily will the possibility occur of the mind leaping to the truth of the teaching and recognizing, “It is so!”
All mental life is based upon the thought-necessity of adequate cause. To it faith and science alike are subject. But no science is able to furnish any explanation as to what it is that this necessity is founded on.
The Buddha furnishes this explanation by showing that _consciousness--as Kamma--is this adequate cause itself_. Hence the necessity that wheresoever life runs its course under the configuration of consciousness, this question as to adequate causes is given along with it. So long as one fails to grasp the fact that consciousness is force, _i.e._ adequate cause, one seeks in phenomena that which one is oneself, that which is accessible nowhere else save only in oneself.
This it is which makes possible that scepticism--as found in Hume, for example--which denies that there is any _actual_ causality at all. For the adequate causes of happenings can never _be proved_, since as forces they can never be perceptible to sense. From this there follows the possibility of unravelling a process to any extent one chooses without once coming upon anything to justify the conception of causality. One must first have understood that my consciousness, the consciousness of the investigator, is this causality itself, if one is to understand wherein lies the necessity of seeing a causal relation everywhere--_without seeing it!_
To arrive at the conception of causality by way of experience is quite impossible. This has been shown by Hume in masterly fashion. But his escape from the difficulty by declaring this conception to be a product of habit is all as mistaken as the other device of declaring it to be a something given _a priori_ to all experience. There is a third alternative, lying between and above these two opposites.
As from the polygon one could never arrive at the conception of the circle, though one carried the duplication of the angles never so far--one would still be left with the concept of the polygon,--so from the simple data, from the following upon one another of two occurrences, one can never arrive at the conception of causality though one should multiply one’s observations even to infinitude. One can only comprehend the circle from the polygon, when the former is given as ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_). In the selfsame way one can only comprehend the causal relation from the succession of events, when the former is given as ultimate value (_Grenzwert_). This, however, does not mean that it is a something given _a priori_; it only means that _consciousness itself is this ultimate value_. Towards this it is that all unwittingly one is striving when one sees in events the causal relation and yet is unable to furnish any explanation of it.
Such is the riddle of the _logical necessity of the law of adequate cause_ as solved by the Buddha.
Again: All mental life splits itself up into these two divisions--faith and science.
Faith says, “There _must_ be present a something imperceptible to sense.” Science says, “We are unable to find anything imperceptible to sense and therefore reject in principle any such conception.”