Pema Chödrön’s When Issues Fall Aside is a gorgeous and priceless work on coping with tough circumstances. What strikes me in it’s how Chödrön – regardless of being a monk herself – takes a place so deeply at odds with conventional Indian Buddhism.
Chödrön refers back to the conventional Buddhist “three marks” (tilakkhaṇa or trilakṣaṇa) of existence: the whole lot is impermanent, struggling, and non-self. This concept goes again to very early texts. However Chödrön does with it’s one thing fairly totally different from the sooner thought:
Despite the fact that they precisely describe the rock-bottom qualities of our existence, these phrases sound threatening. It’s straightforward to get the concept that there’s something incorrect with impermanence, struggling, and egolessness, which is like pondering that there’s something incorrect with our basic state of affairs. However there’s nothing incorrect with impermanence, struggling, and egolessness; they are often celebrated. Our basic state of affairs is joyful. (59)
Right here’s the issue with this passage: the classical Indian Buddhist texts are fairly clear that the truth is there may be one thing incorrect with our basic state of affairs. She is disagreeing with them, whether or not or not she acknowledges it.
Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddha refuses to take pleasure in our basic state of affairs: “I don’t despise objects. I do know them to be on the coronary heart of human affairs. / However seeing the world to be impermanent, my thoughts doesn’t enjoyment of them.” (Buddhacarita IV.85) That is very typical of early Indian Buddhist texts. The Kathāvatthu says “all conditioned issues are, with out distinction, cinderheaps” (II.8). The Theragāthā says: “the physique is oozing foulness — at all times. Certain along with sixty sinews, plastered with a stucco of muscle, wrapped in a jacket of pores and skin, this foul physique is of no value in any respect.” The aim, within the Pali texts, is to get out of “our basic state of affairs” – to flee saṃsāra, the wheel of rebirth, right into a nirvāṇa that’s past it.
Nor does this world-rejecting perspective change with Indian Mahāyāna. Śāntideva – on whom Chödrön has written an whole commentary – tells us to reject romantic relationships on the grounds of their impermanence: “For what particular person is it applicable to be hooked up to impermanent beings, when that particular person is impermanent, when a beloved one is probably not seen once more for 1000’s of lives?” (BCA VIII.5) He recurrently criticizes sexual pleasure on the grounds that the physique is disgusting and foul. His criticism isn’t just of attachment to issues, however of the issues themselves. That’s the reason the bodhisattva should surrender the world in each start (ŚS 14).
Thus Chödrön is doing one thing far faraway from the Buddha when she speaks of impermanence on this means: “within the means of making an attempt to disclaim that issues are at all times altering, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We are inclined to overlook that we’re part of the pure scheme of issues.” (60) Classically, the pure scheme of issues is unhealthy, and we’re making an attempt to get out of it! Thus interdependence is just not one thing to be embraced; fairly the other. Interdependence (pratītya samutpāda), in Indian Buddhist texts, is a bit like alcoholism: it’s completely important that we pay attention to its existence, with a purpose to escape it. I’ve highlighted factors like these a number of occasions earlier than on Love of All Knowledge: classical Indian Buddhists see the world’s impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and essencelessness as causes to reject it.
Now right here’s the factor, although: I don’t suppose that that classical Indian view is right! I stress facets of Buddhism that I discover unappealing as a result of I believe we will study lots from them; I’ve finished so myself. However on the query of rejecting the world, I’ve successfully already sided with Chödrön: I don’t suppose that the impermanence of issues is a motive to reject them. I don’t suppose that the classical Buddhists have made the case for the view that it’s – and moreover, if the proof doesn’t help rebirth, as I don’t suppose it does, then world-rejection might properly lead us to suicide and even homicide. Much better to embrace the products of worldly life.
And but, like Chödrön, I say all of that as a trustworthy Buddhist. Which, lastly, leads me to embrace Chödrön’s phrases because the sensible recommendation they’re, coming from somebody within the Buddha’s lineage who has devoted her life to its path. Śāntideva would by no means say any of the next, and I don’t care:
Who ever obtained the concept that we may have pleasure with out ache? It’s promoted fairly broadly on this world, and we purchase it. However ache and pleasure go collectively, they’re inseparable. They are often celebrated. Delivery is painful and pleasant. Demise is painful and pleasant. (60)
I had described one other work of Chödrön’s as Buddhism watered down – however watered down in a great way, like opening up a cask-strength Scotch. And I believe the identical is true right here. This isn’t the Buddha’s Buddhism, nevertheless it doesn’t want to be.
I don’t know Tibetan custom all that properly, and I don’t understand how conventional Chödrön’s views are in Tibet (versus India). I don’t see something like Chödrön’s strategy in, say, Künzang Sönam’s commentary on Śāntideva. However they may very well be. I believe right here of the “nondual mindfulness” that John Dunne finds within the sixteenth-century work of Wangchuk Dorje: there, a preferred modernized Buddhist view not present in classical India (on this case present-moment mindfulness) does prove to have historic antecedent in Tibet.
Even when this view is new to Chödrön and different trendy Buddhists, although, I don’t suppose that’s ample motive to reject it. After we take refuge within the Buddha, we wish, at some degree, to remain trustworthy to him and his knowledge – however that religion doesn’t have to be blind. I don’t consider that the Buddha was omniscient. He mentioned some incorrect and terrible issues about girls, in any case. Śāntideva’s views have been fairly totally different from the Buddha’s personal, and possibly in some respects an enchancment on them. He wouldn’t have admitted that, however we can and will. We are able to probably enhance on his views too – and I believe Chödrön does! I’d identical to us to acknowledge that that’s what we’re doing.
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