[Buddha-l] Anomalous doctrines [Lusthaus IV]

[Stephen Hodge]

Dear Dan,

You wrote:
> If having to choose between what Buddha's rebuking of
> Sati the Fisherman for thinking that consciousness is that which fares on
> from this life to the next, and Schayer's affirmation of that doctrine as
> "original," I'll go with the tipitaka account. At most, that suggests that
> there were, even then, some trying to import that into Buddha's 
> teaching -- 
> and he definitively rejected that attempt to misrepresent him.
First, Schayer did not say that that doctrine was original, merely that it 
probably belongs to an earlier phase of the teachings.  There are grounds or 
considering the Sati rebuke as belonging to either alternative understanding 
of matters or more likely a somewhat later phase of development.

To understand why this may be so, on should consider the two main versions 
of the pratitya-samutpada, the one which begins with ignorance and the one 
which begins with consciousness.  The reason why there are these wto 
versions seems to be connected with the two alternative "paths" which 
culminate in ceto-vimutti and pa~n~naa-vimutti.  As far as I can see, the 
broad consensus among the handful of scholars dealing with this area 
proposes that the second path, the one relying primarily on insight, is the 
junior path, whereas the first path centred on dhyana is the older one. 
Hence, it is unsurprising that those asserting that liberation is attained 
through insight would see ignorance as the ultimate problem whereas those 
following the process of dhyana with its concommitant quiescence would see 
consciousness or rather the "pravrttis" of consciousness to be the problem. 
Looking carefully at the Buddha's reported description[s] of what he 
attained and how he attained it, it would seem that it was achieved through 
dhyana and not insight.  This would explain why the eightfold path includes 
or culminates in samadhi and does not even mention prajna.

The aim of the dhyana path is vijnana-nirodha.  But this cannot simply mean 
the cessation of consciousness in the sense of eradication, but in the sense 
that what later came to be called vijnana-pravrtti.  There are quite a numer 
of places in the tipitaka where the Buddha gives some hints about the 
continuity of this "stopped" vijnana, for example in his reported discussion 
with Vacchagotta (MN 72).

If the Buddha, according to reports, alludes to his continued post-mortem 
existence in a nivana-ed state, this "stopped" vijnana seems to be the only 
candidate for what persists.  In passing, I would also suggest that this 
could be linked to the prabhasvara-citta concept.  Anyway, since there is no 
suggestion that the Buddha created some kind of new vijnana, but merely 
altered one that was already present for him, then the locus for the 
achievement of nirvana or Buddhahood must also be present beforehand in 
everybody.  Whether there is a direct genetic connection or not, this is 
what proponents of tathagata-garbha or buddha-dhatu are asserting, according 
to my understanding of their teachings.  Appealing to your own interests, 
one can also see how this implied concept of vijnana would also be relevent 
to Yogacara, although you presumably would want to avoid any ontological 
implications.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge