The Yogacara Reaction (a Third Turning Exemplar)

Was it a reaction to problems with Madhyamika? Certainly, the problems it claims to address are that of negativity and the potential for nihilism of the Madhyamika way (how Middle Way can negation really be, it essentially argued?) This school also (as with Madhyamika) arose out of the practice of meditation more than as a purely scholastic divergence. Its name means “practice (cara) of (a) discipline (yoga)” and it rose to prominence in the 4^th and 5th Centuries CE – so it was the latest starter I’ve so far considered (though I’ve briefly mentioned later-developed schools such as Zen and the Tibetan Vajrayana schools and also modern day divisions).

The Mahayana view, generally, had begun to dominate India and Buddhist thought was experiencing one of its heydays. One of its greatest thinkers and the great Sarvastivadan scholastic abhidharma commentator Vasubandhu lived at this time and eventually converted to the less scholastic Yogacara Mahayana view himself after producing his great Sarvastivadan commentary (in which he noted with concern the Sarvastivadan school’s decline), though he remained a thinker and commentator, just with the reduced scholastic pressure inherent in this meditative school. He was apparently converted by his half-brother Asanga and clearly went on to become a key philosopher of the new school.

Asanga had been Sarvastivadan but become a devotee of the not-yet-Buddha, Maitreya, and was also the originator (with alleged assistance of Maitreya during meditation) of much of the Yogacara School’s ideology. According to a popular fable, Asanga’s complete conversion to Maitreya devotion had come about after much searching and prayer to Maitreya for guidance. Finally, when he had reached a point close to despair if not of actual despair, he saw a dog ridden with worms. Further, he realised in his then state that the only way to rid the extremely weakened dog of the worms without killing it was to lick the worms out of its body one by one and proceeded to do so (whereupon the dog revealed itself to be Maitreya and explained that his compassion and wisdom had finally allowed him to see the Maitreya, who had always been with him, in the dog). Besides the Sandinirmocana that I refer to below, Asanga was given five other Sutras by Maitreya (hence their author is usually cited as Maitreya-Asanga). There is a story of one of these Sutras being recited to Asanga by the alleged voice of Maitreya in front of an assembly that was unable to see Maitreya (could Asanga (or Maitreya) have been a great ventriloquist?)

The view’s major special claim to fame is its explicit emphasis on the idea that we all have a Buddha nature (remembering from an earlier post that there was a class of Sutras that had this emphasis – it is, generally, a Yogacara-specific class of Sutra). One of its pre-eminent ones is called the Sandinirmocana, which explicitly mentions that its teachings are a third turning of the wheel of dharma and discusses the limitations of the other turnings (without supplementation by the affirmation and negation of Yogacara that is the true Middle way).

The most completely Yogacara-only class of Mahayana scriptures is the Mind Only class (in terms of what different Mahayana Siddhantas view as useful Mahayana texts). As a rule, it has a more positive-sounding spin on things than Madhyamika. There is for this new view something in the sunyata of an excellent or even an ordinary mind that luminesces, radiates and possesses clarity (prabhasvara).

The difference between these schools is perhaps reminiscent of the difference between Plato and Aristotle later further developed in Western philosophy on the nature of mind and in fact this school may have been inspired by debate within the Hellenistic world that came to the attention of Buddhists.

The Avatamsaka Sutra uses an analogy that suggests all Buddhas are like jewels in an infinite cosmological net all reflecting off each other for us to experience in all their splendid co-reflected awesomeness. This became an especially important Sutra in China where it was seen by many as the highest explanation of what Siddhartha’s actual way of experiencing the universe was (once he became a Buddha). Many of the apparent paradoxes and confusions generally found in Zen and Chan commentaries and thought can be partly traced back to this particular idea of Siddhartha’s (and, by extension, enlightened ones') experiences. For instance, when asked what the ultimate principle of Buddhism is, a Zen master might answer “the oak tree in the garden” because the enlightened Zen monk is expected to see the luminescence, radiance and 'thusness' or 'suchness' (tathata) in all things where the ordinary person isn’t looking.

Being all about meditation, it was natural for its focus to be on the mind, perception and experience. It attempted to deal with so-called false appearances to the mind (pravrtti) by a turning about of this false reality (paravrtti) to get around the false appearances. The focus is on the teaching that it is realisable that there are no objects or subjects, which it calls graspable things (grahyas) and graspers (grahakas), in this state. The unique emphasis here (by the unique use of these specific terms and rejection of the more usual Mahayana terms subject and object and thereby their existence) is thus on undermining whatever it is that ‘causes’ grasping by denying any possible graspability of any actual object by any actual subject.

The Madhyamika Mahayana School (Emptiness, the Second Turning and the Prajnaparamita Sutra)

This school in fact regarded itself as the most middle way.

Nagarjuna, who probably lived in the 1^st Century CE, is known as the founder and pre-eminent philosopher of Madhyamika. His idea was that Buddhism required ‘unpacking’ and especially favoured the Prajnaparamita Sutras as useful tools for this. He added his own thoughts in writing where he deemed clarification necessary, of course.

The school’s main theme is that what had been thought to be effable was, in fact, ineffable, and this is thus a critique of earlier Buddhism. Attempting to 'eff' what wasn’t effable (reality) was clearly an effing waste of energy. Zen/Chan Buddhists also favour the Prajnaparamita scriptures (among others) and meditation over scholastic effing efforts. Their well-known koens (for example, “what is the sound of one hand clapping” and “if a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound”) attempt to illustrate this recognition of the ineffability of reality when the iconic Zen master answers “neti, neti (no, no)” to any and all efforts to answer such a koen (in terms of final truth). Incidentally, the Upanishad scriptures had the same idea of ineffability. Two truths are thus again delineated (if both are not effed): paramartha (final) and samvrti (relative).

Again, this may be compared to the philosophical concerns of Western philosophers. Kant especially, possibly the greatest philosopher of the past 500 years, had a go at ineffability in his Critique of Pure Reason. The basic idea that he used against all arguments for God’s existence of the time was that one can’t apply human reason or language in fully explaining God, for example as a uniquely uncaused cause. God for him must surely be beyond cause, not uncaused (could we even prove that we were truly in a caused reality, after all?) While he was a Christian, his philosophy contributed to a new Western agnostic movement. The difference in the use of ineffability in Buddhist philosophy is that Madhyamika Buddhists still believe that while the infinite may not be explained it may certainly be understood or it may be better to say realised (eventually) by a properly trained human mind.

This concern to notice an ineffability reminds us in effect of Siddhartha’s concern to not answer his famous 14 questions of the two earliest canons (by not answering, was he in effect answering them “neti, neti”? On the Madhyamika view, the answer to that is yes - he knew the answer but didn’t answer because there were no words for the answer – that is, it’s ineffable. He allowed his non-answer to be noted, though, for the same reason the Zen school broadcasts koens – so that we may see that there may well be an answer but one that isn’t effable). The subtlety of all this is seen (especially by this school) to be part of the reason Siddhartha was at first so reluctant to teach. Nagarjuna philosophised that Madhyamika Buddhism was engaged in a dialectic debate that was certainly necessary but definitely not sufficient for a complete understanding of ultimate truths. The reality loomed beyond and over the debate that brought it near to view, clarified sensitivity to it and partly illuminated it.

So the specific characteristics (svalaksana) of the dharmas and other things listed in the abhidharma gave merely a version of relative truth that Siddhartha left to Madhyamika to complete when monks were ready to reject nihilism (and, in the way monks of the first turning still believe they are true, at least, they aren’t really true). Even the duality of samsara and nirvana is now seen to be illusory. Importantly, there can be no right concept. Some are certainly regarded as more right (or at least more complete) than others but dualities are thus not replaced by nihilistic nullities and eternalities but by mere relativities (and the purest idea of non-self); dependent arising is as real as it’s ever been and then some. Even dharmas had no self, Nagarjuna needed to make plain. The abhidharma critiques come from both Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita discourses themselves.

So the Arahants have unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, who can say) missed out (so far). This went some way to democratising Buddhism, though, because it went some way towards cutting down the tallest of tall poppies in the world of Buddhism.

The concise Heart Sutra is perhaps the best known and most important Buddhist scripture today and for all time and is a Prajnaparamita Sutra. A 9^th Century copy of it in Chinese is also in the oldest known extant printed book. Its focus, too, is on the emptiness emphasised by this school. It is also favoured by Thich Nhat Hanh, who I’ll discuss in a later post. The emptiness emphasised in the Heart Sutra is the emptiness of independence from other things. Nhat Hanh treats this subject in an article in which he wonders aloud how a piece of paper is different from the sun that shone on the tree that was the source of the paper to grow it or the labour of the logger that chopped the tree down to begin the paper production process or the logger her/himself or the food the logger eats and so on.

So the emptiness that follows from this is not solipsist but rather emptiness of self-existence (svabhava). This, then, is the paramartha truth: both and neither nothingness and the eternal – the true and ultimate Middle Way. This idea of emptiness is needed to reduce attachment to the ultimate extent (even to the teachings of the school itself – anything that may be expressed in words may be likened to Siddhartha’s famous ‘raft’ of the raft parable – one day they may all be discarded). What’s more, the awe of truly realising the ultimate cannot but produce the purest compassion.

More on the Three ‘Turnings’

Examining the idea of three ‘turnings’ again, we may strengthen our understanding of the history of Buddhism, so let’s give it a go.

The first turning was the basic teaching of the four noble truths and whatever else was taught in the discourses (Suttas/Sutras) in the Pali Nikayas/Sanskrit agamas, initial guidelines for religious orders (in the vinayas in both languages) and the idea of non-self (the idea of the skandhas was especially developed in the abhidharma and its commentaries also initially in both Pali and Sanskrit). This can be seen as Siddhartha’s ‘turning’ towards teaching a kind of ‘Middle Way’, the melding of the best of the Bramana and the Sramana ideas of India’s major religious tendencies.

The second turning was first called and is still regarded as Vaipulya (an extension) and not a repudiation of the first (as with the third). It was not uncritical of the abhidharmas, however. It represented, in fact, a ‘turning’ away from an excessive reliance upon an intellectual understanding of them. True understanding was beyond intellectual understanding and to underscore the great incomprehensibility of it all, ‘turning’ towards the intensely strange idea of no thing-ness became central to the ‘turning’ away from the intellect. This was arguably to ultimately aid in truly understanding the abhidharmas, however, not to supplant them.

The ‘turning’ was also, concurrently, and perhaps consolingly, to the relatively pro-social and thus most likely relatively comforting Bodhisattva ideal. It also ‘turned’ towards an explanation of cosmology admittedly in negative terms, explaining, as an extension of the idea of non-self, not what the universe (including nirvana) was, but what it was not. In this sense it may also be seen as true to the reluctance of Siddhartha to fully explain what the universe actually was and at the same time as a kind of answer to the questions; in effect, then, another ‘middle way’ and another partial answer.

Was the third turning, then, the full answer? What ‘turn’ happened? The ‘turn’ was indeed towards bringing an understanding of what is in contrast to what ‘it’ isn’t within the reach of the adept and even potentially the layperson. It was a ‘turning’ back to society, then (and back to reality, perhaps, albeit a rather magical one). No thing-ness could possess qualities, it taught, such as the radiance (prabhasvara – a special technical word in Buddhism that I’ll come back to) and beauty attainable by the Bodhisattva (among other qualities). It also ‘turned’ towards teaching the potential of all of us (even the meanest devil) to achieve this radiance by virtue of our innate Buddha Natures. It was thus not only humanist but in fact everythingist. The ten bhumis were taught for the Bodhisattva path (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Arhat, either as a hermit or in a religious community, only had to get to number six and may or may not be re-born) and one could also, as a regular or even a religiously honoured layperson, simply choose to gain merit, by leading a good life, for a later, better re-birth).

So there were four main Buddhist Siddhantas (orthodoxies) of the three turnings in India: those of the first turning, Sarvastivada, represented by the Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu, and Sautrantika, outright rejecters of the abhidharma; that of the second turning, represented by the Madhyamika school, stressing emptiness and scripturally represented by the Mulamadhyamakakarika; and that of the third turning, represented by the Yogacara school and scripturally represented by the treatises of Maitreya-Asanga. They all argued over which turning represented the highest teaching of Siddhartha while the Theravadans were down in Sri Lanka doing their own Sarvastivadan thing and regarding all of the Indian versions including Sarvastivada as bastardised Siddhantas.