[Buddha-l] Acting on emptiness

[Richard P. Hayes]

Denizens of buddha-l,

Every now and then I teach a graduate seminar on an individual
philosopher. This year I am cheating a little bit and teaching a
seminar on two philosophers, Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti. We spend two
hours a week reading selected texts in Sanskrit and another two hours
discussing key secondary sources. This past couple of weeks we have
been talking about "the" theory of two truths in Buddhism. (In fact
there are many theories of two truths in Buddhism. I am not sure any
two Buddhists agree on a given theory of two truths.)

Jay Garfield was recently in Albuquerque and visited the seminar. If I
understand him correctly, he claims that for Candrakīrti (who,
according to Jay, got Nāgārjuna pretty much right) ultimate truth just
is conventional truth; between the two truths there is no difference.
The ultimate truth is that no being anywhere has an intrinsic nature.
The conventional truth is also that no being anywhere has an intrinsic
nature. Delusion is the belief that things do have intrinsic natures.
It is said that ultimate truth leads one to nirvāṇa while conventional
truth leads one to saṃsāra, but Nāgārjuna explicitly says there is not
even the slightest difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. And this
claim is the basis of Garfield's saying that conventional truth just
is ultimate truth. (I may be simplifying Garfield's argument, but I
don't think I am misrepresenting it very much.)

Quite a few other modern scholars have given different accounts of the
relation of the two truths. Let me not bore everyone with details.
There is one claim, however, that intrigues me. That claim, made in
various ways by a couple of scholars, is that there is no way of
telling by what a person says whether or not she grasps the ultimate
truth. One can tell whether someone has grasped the ultimate truth
only by the way she acts. Candrakīrti says that one who has acquired
ultimate truth does not act as if things either exist or do not exist. 

Now what I am wondering is this: how would one act if one believed
that things either exist or do not exist? How would one's behavior
differ if one believed in existence and non-existence from one's
behavior if one did not have such beliefs? How could one's
observations of one's own behavior, or the behavior of another,
indicate whether or not one is acting on emptiness?

A stock answer, of course, is that a person who acts on emptiness
clings to nothing, despises nothing and does not find anything scary.
(Not even Sarah Palin? I ask in mock astonishment.) A person who acts
on emptiness is called akutobhaya (has no fear of anything). That
answer is not entirely satisfactory, since a psychopath may well be
fearless. Another stock answer is that one who acts on emptiness is
compassionate toward all beings and responds to try to eliminate all
suffering wherever it may be and no matter who thinks (falsely, it
turns out) that the suffering is his. That answer also seems
inadequate, since universal love can be based on things other than an
awareness of emptiness (unless one wishes to beg the question and say
that whatever a person may say is the basis of her unconditional love,
such as a love of Jesus, the REAL basis of her unconditional love is
just an awareness of emptiness).

That is perhaps enough to give folks some idea of what I am thinking
about. Now I would be interested in hearing what some of you think
about what it might mean to act on emptiness, and what some of you
think the relationship is between the two truths.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://dayamati.blogspot.com
http://dayamati.home.comcast.net
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes