It could be said that the essential teaching in Buddhism is that of karma. "Karma" is a Sanskrit word meaning act, action, or performance with the implication that such "acts" produce effects. When the Buddha gave his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths, he laid out the groundwork for a path along which one may tread to achieve nirvana. Without the notion of cause and effect there would be no way to achieve the peace of enlightenment. It is comparable to the Christian notion from the scripture, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." But the notion of the efficaciousness of cause and effect is also important in a society that is based upon science. Without cause and effect, what would we be elucidating with the scientific method?
The first teachings of the Buddha were on the Four Noble Truths. They were, in order, the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path of the cessation of suffering. The exemplar of the Buddha and the refuge that we take when we become Buddhists is due to our faith or belief that the path of the cessation of suffering is available to us, and that we can take it as did the Buddha. What was the path that he tread?
Siddhārtha Gautama lived and became enlightened due to traveling the Middle Way. He taught that the wisdom of enlightenment required a path of moderation between the extremes of sensual indulgence and complete rejection of sensual gratification. As is commonly understood, he was born a prince and possessed the advantages of every pleasurable extravagance. Through his earnest desire to achieve something more, he left his life as a prince and became an ascetic and sought spiritual peace on that path. While almost dying through self-mortification and denial, he determined that all things were connected and decided to rejuvenate his body and meditate until he became enlightened. This is the initial meaning of the Middle way.
Nagarjuna later elaborated the finer philosophical and metaphysical points of the Middle Way in his Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way. I will not pretend or attempt to explain in a paragraph or two this esoteric work of Buddhism. However, I believe I can further my examination of the relationship of modern psychology with Buddhist psychology by referencing this work in a few ways.
The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way is written into 27 chapters, the first being "Examination of Conditions." The first verse of the first chapter is:
Neither from itself nor from another,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.
Here Nagarjuna sets the stage for the metaphysical system he will propose. In these verses he contradicts four possible explanations for the existence of all things and denies inherent existence in anything.
Buddhism is often criticized for being nihilistic or dour. However, to say that things lack inherent existence is not to assert that they do not exist altogether. The wisdom in Buddhism is to assert that things exist in dependence upon all other things interdependently. This is the true nature of existence. Phenomena are "conditioned" by other phenomena. Nagarjuna opens the door to conditioned phenomena or dependent arising in verse six by asking rhetorically:
For neither an existent nor a non-existent thing
Is a condition appropriate.
If a thing is non-existent, how could it have a condition?
If a thing is already existent, what would a condition do?
Chapter VI is titled "Examination of Desire and the Desirous." Though the subject is desire, the chapter is thought to be more of an examination of the relationship "between human beings and their psychological characteristics." In ten short verses, Nagarjuna dispatches two possibilities of the inherent existence of desire. In one possibility, desire exists dependent upon an inherently existent desirous one. He argues if there were an inherently existent desiring person, there would be no dependence of the desire. The desirous one is independent and has no effect upon the existence of the psychological entity of desire. The second possibility is that they both come into existence simultaneously. In this case, desire and the person would have to be different from one another. If this were the case both would have to be established as inherently existent and completely independent of one another. He concludes the chapter this way:
Since nothing different has been established,
If one is asserting simultaneity,
Which different thing
Do you want to say is simultaneous?
Thus desire and the desirous one
Cannot be established as simultaneous or not simultaneous.
So, like desire, nothing whatever
Can be established either as simultaneous or as nonsimultaneous.
One does not have to be exceptionally philosophically or metaphysically inclined to experience the difference between the things in the world and our experience of them. The issue for Western or Buddhist philosophers alike is when we examine the reality of our experiences, the reality of the things in the world, and their interaction.
The foregoing is the beginning of an examination of the reality of karma when neither the person nor the desire that motivates action inherently exist. How do you suppose this compares with the Cartesian notion or first principle of Cogito Ergo Sum? This will be the basis of my next entry.
References
Nagarjuna. (1995). The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. (J. L. Garfield, Trans.) New York.
