[Buddha-l] bodhi

[Richard Hayes]

On Nov 26, 2009, at 5:49 PM, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> but the point is well
> taken that "enlightenment" seems a good fit for the radiance of these
> Buddhas and the blissful experience we might have in their Pure Lands.

It is my role on this august November forum to steer good discussions  
into the wasteland of irrelevance. All this talk of which direction  
light goes reminds me of a linguistic turn that has taken place in  
Quaker circles. The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, spoke of an  
inward light. He insisted that it does no good to read scriptures in  
the absence of one's own inward light. It is pretty clear from his  
writings that he thought in terms of an inward light that is present  
in each person and that can be used by those who learn to still their  
minds. (Make the mind quiet and see reality? Gad, what a strange  
idea!) It is also clear that Fox thought of this light as shining  
inward from something else that is, well, outside. That outward source  
was, of course, the usual three suspects of Christian theology.

The linguistic turn that has taken place is that very few modern  
Quakers talk of an inward light. The phrase has been replaced by inner  
light, the implication being that this capacity to see correctly is  
innate and needs nothing from the outside to enhance it. In those  
Quakers for whom all talk of God and the Holy Spirit are either  
linguistic habits from a previous age that have not quite died out yet  
or indirect ways of speaking of awareness, and for whom all talk of  
Christ is embarrassing and disturbing, the phrase "inward light"  
produces many heebies and even a few jeebies. Any phraseology that  
smacks of Other power stuns such Quakers into silence. If these  
Quakers were Buddhists, they would insist on rendering "budh" only as  
"awaken" and would advise that all who translate it as "be  
enlightened" be referred to a clearness committee for spirit-led  
mentoring until they see the light.

A dimension of this discussion that has not yet come up (this time  
around -- this topic is one of the perennial favorites on buddha-l  
that returns like that last piece of pumpkin pie eaten on Thanksgiving  
day) is the discussion in Kathāvatthu. The discussion point is whether  
bodhi is a thing that can be obtained. Some Buddhists thought it was,  
and some thought it was not. The nay-sayers at the time of the  
Kathāvatthu included the Theravāda school. The reasoning was that  
anything that can be attained can also be lost. But bodhi cannot be  
lost. Therefore all talk of reaching it, attaining it, getting it,  
arriving at it and so forth must be seen as figurative language that  
cannot be taken literally without courting severe misunderstanding.  
The question naturally arises, if bodhi is not a thing that one  
attains, what can it be? The answer given is that "bodhi" is just a  
name given to the absence of delusion. One cannot reach, attain, get  
or arrive at an absence. All one can do is to wait until a presence  
goes away, and then one "has" an absence.

That bodhi was seen as an absence (by some Buddhists) throughout the  
history of Indian Buddhism may account for why Dharmakīrti and his  
crew were so all-fired obsessed with the question of how one can know  
that something is absent. Knowing absence cannot be done through  
direct sense perception, so it requires a whole new kind of inference  
based on an anupalabdhi-hetu, evidence in the form of non- 
apprehension. It involves counterfactual reasoning of the form "If X  
were present, it would be perceived, provided that it is perceptible.  
But it is not perceived, so it must not be present (unless it is  
imperceptible)." All of the ink spilled by Buddhist epistemologists on  
this issue of how one knows absences gives all the appearance of being  
motivated by the larger question, "If bodhi is an absence, then how  
can one know that one 'has' it? Why do all those sūtras keep saying  
that when a person 'has' bodhi, she knows that she 'has' it?"

I'd say more, but I have to go shift a paradigm. (If you don't turn  
paradigms over from time to time, they burn.)

Richard