The Buddhist ass's bridge

Buddhism has its own version of the ass's bridge (L., pons asinorum). The term 'ass's bridge', to refresh the reader's memory, is about the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, namely, "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another." Believe it or not, some students of geometry didn't understand this and so, couldn't cross the bridge having to remain asses, as far as geometry was concerned. 

In Buddhism, the ass's bridge is the failure to understand that when the Buddha is referring to the Five Aggregates of form, feeling, perception, volitions, and consciousness, saying of each one, "This is not my self" his words are not meant to be taken as a denial of self or atman.  Far from it.  The Buddha is simply denying that his self is psychophysical, i.e., the Five Aggregates.

In Buddhism—the old cannon—there are three ways the idea of self is used.  First, there is the view that the self is one of the Five Aggregates which then makes an aggregate eternal—an atman, in other words.  This is eternalism which the Buddha didn’t buy.  The second way self is used is that there is no self or in Pali, nattha attâ.  This is annihilationism (nattha attâ is not to be confused with anattâ—the two expressions are quite different).  The Buddha was dead-set against the annihilationist view like the view of eternalism.  The third, and correct use of self is that we regard each of the Five Aggregates this way: “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (netam mama, neso'hamasmi, na me so atta). 

The third use of self is obviously Buddhism’s version of the via negativa.  The reason for this particular use of self is explained by George Grimm.

“What I am not, can be determined with certainty, at all events; but a positive answer to the question as to what I am, may easily raise doubts as to whether I actually am that wherein the answer asserts my essence to consist, as is amply proved by our divers philosophical systems.  Therefore it must, from the outset, inspire us with confidence in the Buddha that he  prefers the safer indirect way.” (The Doctrine of the Buddha (1926), p. 120).

Presently, it seems to me that many Western Buddhists are unable to cross the ass’s bridge, that is, grasp the simple methodology of the via negativa in Buddhism that I am not this psychophysical apparatus which, I hasten to add, implicitly affirms the self.  What appears to add to the confusion and the impossibility of crossing the ass’s bridge is Western materialism with its hatred of the transcendent.  The Buddhist materialist cannot see beyond the armature of the psychophysical apparatus, that is, the Five Aggregates which, incidentally, belong to the Buddhist devil, Mara. 

 

Comments

[Kojizen]

Clyde, admit it, you are the American reincarnation of Dogen!

[clyde]

Kojizen; You seem to be arguing with Dogen. (He’s dead.) And you avoided answering my questions about your views. Perhaps another time you’ll share Kojizen’s understanding.

[Kojizen]

Clyde, there is subtle but important difference between the lion (phenomenon) and the gold (noumenon) analogy of Fa-tsang and Dogen's belief that phenomena and Buddha-nature are the same.

To use Fa-tsang's other analogy it is like a snake made of rope which the deluded mind perversely imagines to exist. But in truth there is no snake. For Dogen the snake is the rope. Delusion is enlightenment.

[clyde]

Kojizen; I’ve read very little Dogen, so I don’t know his teachings on Buddha-nature. And I’m more interested in understanding your view. Perhaps if we examine a favorite analogy of the blog: the Golden Lion.

We agree that the Self is not the form (or any of the Aggregates). And you can’t ‘have’ the gold because then the question would be: What is the ‘you’ that has the gold? And you can’t be multiple gold atoms, since the Buddha clearly taught that “All compound things are impermanent.” But are you a single unique, identifiable particle of gold different from other equally unique and identifiable particles of gold; i.e., does your particle of gold have a mark of Kojizen? Does the Zennist ‘particle of gold’ (Self) have a mark of Zennist?

clyde

[Vaccha]

I think some people hear or see the word "eternalism" and that the Buddha rejected it and rush to assume therefore that the Buddha rejected the notion of the eternal altogether without them having fully examined how it is really defined by the Buddha. However, that the Buddha described Nibbana as "sassata" clearly obviates this mistaken generalization, lest the Buddha (or the suttas) be immediately accused of the eternalism he professes to reject. So there is more to it, and it is very important to know what the Buddha says about it.

So the student of Buddhism should be able to see that there is no contradiction, because on the contrary, Eternalism is identified by the Buddha as a set of "sakkayaditthi" or views concerning the existing aggregate, which his teaching consistently shows are non-eternal. That is to say, when exampled as a heresy (for example in the Brahmajala sutta) it has a specific focus with regard to what the Buddha otherwise knows to be non-eternal, and that is the crux of the error; it lies not in the notion of eternality itself, only in mistaking the non-eternal for the eternal. So when the Buddha identifies Nibbana as sassata and the five aggregates as non-eternal and suffering, and furthermore Nibbana as the happy utter cessation of the five aggregates, it is patently not "eternalism" as rejected by the Buddha even though he is most clearly offering an eternal.

Put another way, eternalism as a heresy puts forth the eternality and identity of both self and world. Knowing that world is defined by the Buddha at one place as "that which perishes," we can immediately see why he rejects such a doctrine. Interestingly enough, if one examines the Brahmajala sutta closely, one notices a glaring "omission" in the taxonomy of error: the doctrine "the self is eternal, the world not" is not included in the wrong views described, which is curious given this is the principle pernicious doctrine that those who generalize the Buddha's rejection of eternalism assume he is rejecting. It's probably because just such a doctrine is the basic gist of his own teaching!

On the flip side of sakkayaditthi, annihilationism would be a mistaking (doctrinally) of the eternal for the non-eternal, saying it perishes or does not exist as the eternal, therefore identifiable also --as the Buddha explicitly does-- with "natthika" or "nihilism/denial". To say of what properly should be understood as eternal that it is non-eternal is the same thing as to say the eternal does not exist.