Vedantic Self and Buddhist Non-Self | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Vedantic Self and Buddhist Non-Self | Swami Sarvapriyananda


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423,972 views Jun 3, 2022Swami Sarvapriyananda speaks on the difference and similarities between the Vedantic concept of Self and the Buddhist concept of Non-self. ► To support the Vedanta Society of New York: http://www.vedantany.org/donate Vedanta NY Archives: / vedantanewyorkarchives Web: http://vedantany.org Soundcloud: / vedantany iTunes Podcast: http://bit.ly/vedanta-talks-itunes Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5IrDmqX... Facebook: / vedantany ABOUT VEDANTA Vedanta is one of the world’s most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. ABOUT US Vedanta Society of New York is affiliated with the Ramakrishna Order of India. In fact, this is the Order's first Center started by Swami Vivekananda, in 1894. It was a historic event, for the seed of the world-wide Ramakrishna Movement was sown here in New York over a century ago. Swami Sarvapriyananda is the present Resident Minister and Spiritual Leader of the Vedanta Society of New York.







Key moments

View all







Vedantic Self
3:40


Seven Point Reasoning
45:06


Nine Proofs of the Existence of God against the Buddhists
53:20


Non-Dualist Response
1:12:27
Transcript

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0:00

[Music]

0:33

lead me from the unreal to the real lead me from darkness unto light

0:39

lead us from death to immortality om peace

0:44

peace peace

0:49

good morning everybody namaste good morning

0:58

today is the thrice blessed day technically not today tomorrow

1:05

buddha purnima it's the day when bhagavan buddha was born

1:13

more than 2500 years ago it's the day when he attained

1:18

enlightenment bodhi and the final nirvana when he left his body

1:23

so the thrice blessed day it is celebrated not only in india but

1:29

all over the world in the united nations also a gentleman who works in the united nations said a couple of years back on

1:36

this day he said oh we are celebrating vesak today and being from india i didn't quite get

1:42

it what was vesak then i of course immediately thought about it it's vaishak vaishak vaishaki

1:49

so that in the southeastern uh southeastern asian countries

1:55

um thailand and other places they're called it's called vesak and it's widely celebrated across the

2:03

[Music] southern asia or far east also and now in the united nations also

2:11

on this day uh i usually give a talk about the life and teachings of the buddha

2:16

but not today what i'm going to do today is a little different you have seen the subject

2:23

vedantic self and buddhist non-self or buddhist no self

2:29

that's what we will talk about why this subject a couple of reasons one reason is that

2:38

it keeps coming up buddhism is so popular and when we talk about vedanta or any of the

2:44

hindu philosophies one question that will inevitably come up if you think a little bit about it is

2:52

it keep talking about the self the atman of course selfie the capitalist nevertheless a self

2:58

an independent unitary eternal entity exactly what the

3:04

buddhists deny so there is no independent

3:10

eternal separate um self it's exactly the opposite of it's

3:16

base fundamentally what buddhism buddhism is about denying that according to buddhism there is no such

3:22

self not only that it would be terrible if there were it is the clinging to the concept of

3:27

such a self it is that self clinging which is samsara you free yourself from that then

3:33

you will get liberation it seems to be just the 100 you know 80 degrees opposite to what

3:38

hinduism is saying so vedantic self i keep talking about the atman and the buddha keeps buddha

3:45

and the buddhists for 2500 years they keep talking about the anatman not self

3:50

so i thought we should talk about it i have spoken about it on different occasions

3:56

but a full talk also a second reason for this would be

4:02

i actually did some work on this a couple of years back i was part of a fellowship program at harvard divinity

4:09

school so during my time at harvard university um i studied

4:14

buddhism quite a bit under two different but very well known professors of course it was

4:19

an academic study i am not a buddhist as you know i'm a vedantic monk

4:25

but uh i studied it under i would say world authorities uh

4:30

professor garfield i studied indo-tibetan madhyama-ka-buddhism and uh one of the things that i had to

4:38

do was work on chandra kitty's seven point

4:44

reasoning the attack on the concept of the self and what would advaita vedanta say to that

4:52

so i wrote this paper called chandra kiti's and i remember submitting it to

4:59

professor garfield who immediately rejected it he said what do you think this is a

5:05

a vedanta society he said without the temple talk it's a paper submitted

5:12

at harvard university so you have to do these these things so i rewrote it again and he promptly

5:18

rejected it again so third time i submitted it incorporating all his

5:23

suggestions which are all very good and then finally he was happy with it he said it's a it's a very good defense of

5:30

advaita vedanta he didn't say very good he said good defense of advaita vedanta

5:36

against the tibetan buddhist uh attack on on the uh

5:42

concept of self so because i put in that work i thought let's just talk about it for some time

5:48

um so let's start with the buddha anyway 2500 years ago

5:53

we all know the story how prince siddhartha in a small north indian kingdom which is now partly in north

5:58

india partly in nepal he was born there he was a prince and

6:05

he was always deeply spiritual it was predicted that he would either become a world conqueror or a you know world

6:12

teacher spiritual master which he became both you know sort of uh he is the one of the greatest spiritual masters that

6:18

the humanity has known and his uh has conquered the world i mean in that sense you know the

6:24

influence of buddhism is across the whole world right here in the united states for example

6:30

2 500 years later he continues to be highly revered studied taught

6:36

commented upon his teachings have been elaborated endlessly over the last 25 centuries

6:43

we know very briefly that he saw these four sites as a young prince saw an old

6:48

person a sick person and a dead person and then a monk and then he saw that this suffering is

6:56

all pervasive and there is there's a quest to overcome suffering embodied by the monk so he decides to become a monk

7:02

in search of a solution to suffering remember this is remarkable because he

7:07

was not suffering in fact he was having a whale of a time he he was partying all day and night

7:15

so he was married to this beautiful princess they had a little son rahula and so on

7:21

but he noticed that nobody can escape suffering not his his mother he had lost his

7:27

mother he when he was young not his parents who the king and the queen not he

7:33

himself the prince and so he sets out on a quest to overcome suffering

7:39

importantly not just for himself but for everybody that there should be an end to suffering because not just my

7:46

suffering but suffering per se then he goes and uh importantly he meets

7:52

a number of spiritual masters and he recounts this later on they were some of the leading teachers of his time and he

7:58

learns from them not satisfied with what they had taught him not not just the philosophy but the practices and then he

8:04

goes on on his own and finally under the bodhi tree he discovers the truth the

8:11

real nature of the self and the world what it what is reality and that reality sets him free so that freedom is called

8:18

nirvana bodhi wisdom enlightenment sets him free and then he for the next 40 years this

8:25

is the first 40 years of his life next 40 years he roams the length and breadth of north india

8:31

and he organizes this huge monastic order it was initially a very

8:36

part of the general society it was not distinct from hinduism in any way in those days and it was a

8:42

very a group of dedicated band of practitioners were all monks later on

8:48

nuns bikunis bhikkhus and bikunis and lay people and finally it was codified into

8:55

this religion on its own the buddha dharma and from the very beginning it spread

9:01

across india and then beyond the frontiers of india so kante says

9:10

about the the tolerance the acceptance of the hindus that here is a teacher a prominent

9:17

teacher who who disavows who does not accept the

9:23

authority of your texts you know the vedas and criticizes

9:28

the orthodox religion of the time to your face and he was not only tolerated he was honored he was

9:35

accepted huge numbers of people converted into buddhism became

9:40

buddhists i don't know if at any time the majority of indians were buddhists but certainly a very big minority very

9:46

large numbers of people they were large monasteries they were the first

9:52

universities of the world huge universities which came up uh and and that will play some role in

9:58

our talk today and then buddhism spread across india and beyond india to sri lanka

10:04

the emperor ashoka sent his own son and daughter as emissaries of buddhism

10:10

to southeast asia to what is now thailand and burma and then

10:16

later on across the mountains to tibet this is of course hundreds of years later

10:22

to tibet to china korea japan up to the middle east also what was what

10:28

is now afghanistan and in the middle east there are some records of buddhist monks going as far

10:34

as that so and today it's all over the world it's here in the united states very

10:40

prominent um dalai lama is one of the most well-known figures in the world today

10:47

all right now what happened was as the buddhists

10:54

buddha and the buddhists after him advocated the doctrine of

10:59

not self or no self anatma i'll use the term no self no self against the

11:05

hindu teaching of a self the hindus naturally responded

11:10

the various schools of hinduism philosophical schools like the nyaya the vaisheshika the sankhya and the purvam

11:18

imams are these four were prominent in responding to the attacks from buddhist schools remember it's not that the

11:24

buddhists were only debating with the hindus multiple buddhist schools came up which were

11:29

engaged with each other in debate so i remember one class in professor

11:34

garfield's class where one of the buddhist philosophers is making some attacks on this pers on this

11:42

school that school i don't know what those english terms mean so i sort of approximate

11:48

translations in saskatoon i thought this was this particular hindu school that particular hindu school and

11:53

professor garfield smiled and said none of them are hindu schools they are all buddhist schools so he is attacking

11:58

other buddhists so there was an enormous amount of debate on various issues one of those issues

12:06

one of those issues was the existence of a self of an atman and allied to this was the issue it's

12:12

actually a secondary issue of uh god because the nyaya school for example

12:18

would say atma there is an eternal self we are an immortal soul an eternal self

12:24

and this eternal self comes in two varieties two flavors one is sentient beings like us each of

12:30

us individually we are eternal selves atma and there's one special kind of atma of which there is only one and

12:37

that's god so god and immortal souls they're all atmas one is atma one is paramatma

12:45

jivatma paramatma this individual sentient being and the supreme lord so if you could dismiss the individuals

12:52

and eternal individual being self you could dismiss the god also that would be another avenue of attack so

12:59

these were two areas of attack of debate between the buddhists and the hindu

13:05

schools and among each other also over a period of 1 000 years

13:11

there was a course by professor patil at harvard which i had i really liked it intensive course on classical indian

13:18

buddhism a thousand years of buddhist philosophy in sanskrit translated into

13:24

incomprehensible english and endless readings handouts

13:29

most of which made very little sense if you read it in english but still very interesting

13:35

this was one of the golden periods of development of indian philosophy

13:40

the other one i would say was later in the medieval period when buddhism at albert disappeared from india then the

13:47

real debate was between the non-dualist the advaithans and the other schools the dualist dwightins the

13:54

vishishtadwaitin's qualified modest and various other schools of vedanta and nyaya attacking non-dualism and so there

14:01

was another burst of development in indian philosophy so these two uh eras

14:07

but primarily the thousand years which followed the buddha more than thousand

14:12

years actually up to the end of the first millennium

14:17

um but what would buddha himself thought about it i think he wouldn't have had a very high opinion of all of this

14:24

there is for example in buddha's original dialogues there is this when he sees

14:29

this subtle debates going on he said oh monks when you when your house is on fire

14:37

would you debate the nature of fire or would you put it out

14:43

when you are shot with an arrow would you give discourses on arrows or you know help the uh you know try to take

14:50

the arrow out and save yourself such is the nature of suffering instead of discoursing on the nature of

14:56

suffering on you know subtle discussions on that one would try to overcome suffering and so when the buddha was

15:02

asked questions like this does the self exist or doesn't it not will the buddha be there after death after the death of

15:08

the body and so on number of questions in fact 14 great silences of the buddha there

15:14

why did the buddha keep silent on these subjects if you ask the buddha today's question self or no self

15:22

is there a self the buddha's answer actually was did i say there was so the monk the baku

15:30

jumps to the other conclusion oh so there is no self did i say there was not

15:37

then he's puzzled what do you mean there it either is or there is not and uh

15:43

and then the buddha says and so other teachers teach this some say there is a self something there is nothing and they

15:48

were they were nihilists or materialists who said there was no permanent self at all this matter so what what are you teaching he says i

15:55

teach that there is suffering and there is a reason for suffering cause and there is

16:01

an end to suffering and there is a way out of suffering the four noble truths very practical

16:09

a practical system of ethics and meditation designed to take you directly to enlightenment and freedom

16:15

so dukkha suffering first noble truth servant all is suffering

16:22

somebody told me don't translate it as suffering because a lot of people are actually not suffering but

16:28

just about everybody is dissatisfied so translate it as dissatisfaction with state of things and it can intensify

16:35

into pain and suffering then the second one is there is a cause of this

16:40

it's not just random there's a cause of suffering and that is desire krishna thirst

16:48

the thirst for making this seeming individual self fully satisfied

16:54

with this world and not being happy if i'm not fully satisfied all the time

16:59

like thinking everybody should be endlessly nice to me all the time

17:05

it sounds ridiculous if i say that but my behavior seems to show that i implicitly believe that somebody is

17:11

rude to me and i become unhappy for the rest of the day why because i believe somewhere everybody

17:18

all the time should be consistently endlessly nice to me no

17:23

so this thirst that everything should be perfect for me all the time otherwise i'm going to be dissatisfied third

17:30

is is there an end to this yes whatever as a cause

17:35

can be started and stopped you remove the cause it'll stop so the end is called nirvana freedom

17:43

the endologist heinrich zimmer he says that the philosophies of india are actually

17:49

optimistic they sound pessimistic because they talk about suffering but they're optimistic because they all

17:55

offer an end to suffering and that there is and that end is in our own hands it's a

18:01

spiritual end in which we can we can generate ourselves so nirvana it's an

18:06

old and very honored term in india there are many such words nirvana moksha kaiwalya apavarga they all mean the same

18:14

thing and different philosophies had these terms so nirvana as possible

18:19

and then what is the method the eight eight-fold way ashtanga marga i'm not

18:26

going to go into that eightfold way that's the method one in one medieval philosopher

18:34

madhav acharya he wrote this book sarva darshana sangraha a collection of different philosophies so at the towards

18:41

the end he says these philosophers are like chikitsakanamiva just like doctors

18:47

what do they do they see the symptom pain suffering then they identify the

18:52

cause what's the disease desire krishna then they identify

18:59

that whether it's curable or incurable and they come to the conclusion it's curable there is nirvana moksha

19:05

you can attain peace and fulfillment you can go beyond suffering

19:10

and then is there a treatment yes there is a treatment that is the marker the way

19:16

so buddha is like that the symptom the cause the cure and the treatment

19:23

so that was the buddha and the buddhist sangha which came up about 500 years after the buddha

19:30

the greatest of the buddhist philosophers i would say there are many many great philosophers

19:35

naga juna [Music] extraordinary people whose

19:42

value we are only now beginning to uh you know sort of excavate actually

19:47

you have to do a little bit of philosophical you know like archaeological digging philosophical digging to see

19:52

how remarkable they were and just about every philosophical point of view under the sun today had already

19:59

been discussed threadbare in ancient india more than 1500 years ago but among

20:06

them shines undisputed brightness is nagarjuna who lived in the south

20:14

of india in what is now andhra and

20:19

he is famous for his book the moolah madhyamaka karika mulla madhyama kakarika so the kind of buddhism which

20:26

traces itself back to nagarjuna he was just elaborating the teachings of the buddha

20:31

so it is called madhyamaka buddhism madhyama literally means the middle path that's the middle path here middle path

20:37

philosophically between the two extremes of eternalism hindus

20:43

and nihilism that nothing exists like the materialists there's no truth at all there's nothing

20:49

that's materialism he says no there is there is a transparent uh spiritual truth which will set you free

20:54

but it's not what the other schools the orthodox schools of hinduism are saying that there is one separate

21:01

limited self you know there's a body there's a mind and there is an atma

21:06

not like that so the middle path madhyamaka middle path philosophically

21:11

nagarjuna took buddha's silence philosophically why did buddha keep quiet one reason was practical be

21:17

spiritual get enlightenment but also the silence was the correct answer to

21:24

these questions because any answer you express in language is actually logical if you want

21:29

a very precise logical answer it will be wrong whatever you say if you say there is no atma

21:35

wrong if you said it there is a self wrong

21:41

why is that so how can you logically formulate the truth so that was

21:46

nagarjuna's effort what he tried to do um he also

21:53

if you see the book moola democracy it's fascinating philosophers i think especially nowadays and so many

21:59

philosophers are fascinated with it it's entirely negative it demolishes everything he says

22:05

shunyata sarvadrishthinam the emptiness of all philosophies not only philosophies whatever we think

22:11

and do in daily life all of it is full of contradictions one reason might be because

22:16

of these all these subtle discussions he wanted to show that you will not come at a formulated philosophy linguistically

22:24

formulated philosophy which will adequately grasp the truth you can't do it even simple things cannot be grasped by

22:31

logic so i think 23 chapters

22:37

he demolishes concept of a self atma he demolishes the concept of dharma he

22:44

demolishes the concept of tata buddha he is buddhist and demolishes the concept of the four

22:50

noble truths demolishes the concept of nirvana freedom but what he is doing is not that they

22:56

are wrong he's saying the way you're trying to express them and limit them this is what buddha taught that doesn't work why it doesn't work he will show

23:05

even common things like walking like walking just walking the ordinary walking that we do he says even that's

23:11

full of contradiction i'll give you a sample of nagarjuna today quickly

23:18

so he says we say the walker is walking and his question is who is walking well

23:25

the walker is walking but the walker is defined as somebody who's walking right who already has the property of walking

23:31

his action of walking is inherent in the workers see he's using language which was used by the nyayas so in the ayah

23:37

school you need to know little bit of naya philosophy they were realists they took the common sense experience of the world as real and described it with

23:44

their philosophy so action in hers action is there in the

23:49

agent you are walking so there is an action called walking it's really there and where is it it's

23:55

in you everything has to be clear there is a person who's walking walking

24:00

is an action where is the action can't be in the road it must be in you so you are the walker and walking is in

24:08

you nagarjuna asks so you're the walker yes how do you define as the walker the one

24:14

was the property of walking now you say who is walking the walker is walking so there is two walkings

24:19

one the walker has the property of walking in you and then the walker is walking so there are two walkingstone dwight

24:26

did he walk twice said no no no he walked only once so it

24:32

is the person who was not walking that person walks so the not walker walks do you see the contradiction in that

24:38

[Music] he said no no i mean it's just a person there's no such thing as walking in him

24:45

so where is the walking is in the road is the road walking so he goes you see the whole book is like that

24:52

so if you ask him he has he developed this what is called chatushkoti the four

24:57

options or the four alternatives a very powerful logical tool uh he does about 2000 years ago where

25:04

any question you throw at him any philosophy he tears it to pieces based on these four alternatives what are the

25:10

four alternatives suppose some say something like um there is god

25:16

he will show that it is wrong that there is god oh so you are trying to show you are a

25:22

buddhist you don't believe in god there is no god he says it is wrong to say that there is no god also then god both is and is not it's a

25:29

contradictory statement how can god both be and not be so it is wrong to say that god is and is not

25:35

so is it that god neither is nor is not and he said no that even that is wrong it's not that god neither is nor is not

25:42

so these are the four alternatives you say there is a self he says no i will show that there cannot be an atman as

25:47

you will see how he will show there can't be a self so there is no self no atma no that's also wrong it's not that

25:53

there is no atma so there both is a self and not there is no self so that's

25:58

obviously contradictory so it's not that there is a self and there is no self so the opposite of that you deny that there

26:05

is neither a self nor not a self he says neither that also chatushkoti

26:10

the reality is beyond the four alternatives beyond the four alternatives is reality

26:16

that's what he calls shunyam emptiness emptiness is if you examine any view any

26:22

philosophical view which is positively stated he says i can demonstrate logically that it falls apart and that

26:28

that's the emptiness of that view somebody says wait a minute your philosophy mr nagarjuna professor

26:35

nagarjuna let's say professor nagarjuna your philosophy your view so that according to you that's also

26:41

should be empty says ah but i don't have a view.

26:50

emptiness of all views if i had a view you could cut it down but since i have

26:55

no view you can't cut it down so this is a kind of debate in ancient

27:00

india it was called vitanda to understand this there were three kinds of debates which were popular

27:07

vada jalpa vitanda why there was a debate between the people who were trying to

27:13

find the truth inquiry you could shift your positions and learn and change your ideas and all of that

27:19

then that's the best kind of debate and ideally debates were supposed to be like that but practically they were not the

27:24

second kind of debate was jalpa where you had your position and your opponent

27:31

has it has their position and then you debate you try to establish your position and cut

27:36

down the opponent's position the opponent tries to establish their position and cut down your position

27:42

uh swapshastapanam parapakshaddusanam that is the and there are so many techniques and rules

27:48

and these ancient debates were like gladiatorial com combats intellectual um so they're very sophisticated system

27:56

of debate and it was a wonderful thing it prevented a lot of you know crudeness and violence in ancient india so you

28:03

only experts engaged in this and it would be conducted at a very high level of sophistication

28:09

sometimes they actually met and discussed these things sometimes it was in writing

28:15

the third kind of debate which nagarjuna is doing is called vitanda vitanda means i have no position i just cut down

28:21

whatever you say that sounds very rude but actually that's a very sophisticated form of philosophy that any kind of

28:28

philosophical position is bound to be false you state it i'll show you that it is false i'm not saying that there's no

28:34

truth but the truth lies beyond your philosophical positions so nagarjuna is a classical case of ah

28:40

of a bhitanda type of debate another one well known as sri harsha who was

28:46

interestingly an advaithin non-dualist and he follows the same technique

28:51

whatever position you have i'll show you it's wrong and by that what i'm trying to teach

28:57

non-dual vedanta will stand automatically established i don't have to argue to establish it

29:04

sriharsha is one of the very few classical indian hindu philosophers

29:10

who says nagarjuna is right he says at the very beginning with the

29:16

madhyamakas that means nagarjuna's followers we have no quarrel he says at the beginning of

29:22

his text his text is kandana the cookies of refutation

29:28

kandakadya means sweets or cookies so the book is called the cookies of the delicious of refutation of cutting down

29:35

delights in cutting down other people's views so nagarjuna wrote this book

29:43

23 chapters all entirely negative and whatever philosophy you could have including very fairly just about all

29:51

buddhist approaches he cuts it down now he had commentators those who developed his philosophy further not too

29:57

much the major person whom we are interested in today is chandra kirti chandra kitty

30:04

one of the greatest buddhist philosophers today because

30:10

he lived about 1500 years ago he did not have much of a following in

30:16

india but later on his work took a new life in tibet basically

30:22

orthodox tibetan buddhism today his holiness the dalai lama and the uh monks

30:28

who follow him the philosophy which he teaches is based on chandra kitti's interpretation of

30:33

nagarjuna's interpretation of the buddha buddha let's not forget the buddha buddha

30:42

i can imagine buddha tearing his hair i didn't say all this

30:51

and nagarjuna says you did just keep quiet let me explain it to them

30:57

so buddha the naga nagarjuna 500 years after the buddha and about 400 years

31:03

after nagarjuna's chandra kitty who was also born in the south of india

31:08

i think he converted to buddhism and then he rose to great prominence as a buddhist teacher as a monk

31:15

and then he studied and he taught at the famous university of nalanda which is in bihar today bihar the word

31:22

bihar also comes from it means buddhist monastery vihara where thousands of buddhist monks used to stay together

31:28

some of these monasteries became universities nalanda vikram sheila odantapuri dakshashila

31:35

so huge university systems nalanda when nalanda was finally destroyed

31:42

by muslim invaders around 12th 13th century bhakti archaeology he raised the i mean for them they were all you know

31:49

heretics and carpets so no distinction between buddhists hindus whoever so just

31:55

kill them and wipe out destroy the monasteries by that time already

32:01

buddhism was sort of very faint in hindu it had diminished greatly

32:07

and the nalanda was destroyed they said it burned for weeks or months they had a seven story library they say

32:13

that has not yet been excavated if you go that's one of the wonders of the world they have excavated a university

32:19

which was established 1500 years ago lasted for nearly 800 years a university

32:25

and one kilometer long and that's only one tenth of the university that the rest

32:31

still lies underground if you go there eleven thousand students used to study

32:38

all male of course in those days and each had his own room

32:43

so individual rooms if you go there you'll see little and pretty nice rooms and we were lucky what they did was when

32:49

the universe the rooms and the buildings got damaged instead of demolishing them and

32:55

repairing them what they did was they built over them so nowadays it's great for archaeologists because if you dig deep

33:01

down you find newer and newer universities so and you can see

33:07

the last modifications the last iteration of naland university is pretty crude compared to the original one so

33:14

clearly the patrons the kings the kings it was all you know

33:20

royal patronage so clearly the kings were less powerful rich less rich

33:27

so but at that time nalanda was rising 1500 years ago when chandra kitty was

33:32

there and he became one of the greatest teachers that nalanda had

33:38

and the abbot with something like the head of the department of buddhist studies or something but there was something more than buddhist studies

33:44

also if you go to nalanda you will find in there's a little museum

33:50

with not only buddhist artifacts but also hindu artifacts clearly non-buddhist artifacts

33:55

chandra kitty rose to great prominence there and is a very well-known teacher why am i going on about chandra kirti

34:02

because he wrote some books uh commentaries on nagarjuna

34:08

which finally sort of faded into obscurity the debate took on different uh forms

34:14

and then slowly the purva memsa school led by kumari lapatta and then shankaracharya vedanta school it came to

34:21

prominence buddhism declined and finally disappeared around 12th century when nalanda was

34:27

finally destroyed and raised to the ground it's interesting that's when the oldest

34:32

university in the west oxford the oldest college in oxford belial college

34:38

that was coming up in the 13th century in england i went to england i saw the college and saw the date twelve hundred

34:44

eighty or something that's around the time that nalanda finally collapsed

34:50

i think all those professors must have been reborn in to carry on their work

34:55

[Music] it's not impossible because mashaaradha

35:00

she went on a tour of the buddhist the ruins of the buddhist monasteries once

35:06

and there were a group of english men and women who were also touring at that time and the english men and women were

35:12

oohing and eyeing about all these ancient relics and then she was smiling they asked her why she's

35:19

smiling and she said she said something very cryptic look at them they are the ones who built all this and

35:26

now they come and wonder at their own handiwork so maybe there are these ancient souls

35:32

who who've been that's really tenure lasting for thousands of years across

35:38

lifetimes you become a professor wherever you go

35:43

all right i've been avoiding starting the subject now let's let's start

35:49

so this chandra kitty what he did was he focused his attack on the concept of

35:54

self atma and this he did by the seven point reasoning the seven

36:01

point reasoning which i will run through quickly now and then give a reaction from a advaita perspective

36:08

just by the way why reaction from the advaita perspective i do have to do this because there is really no cogent

36:14

reaction from the advaita perspective those who debated against chandra kitty and other buddhist philosophers where

36:20

the hindu nayaka sankhyas and the purvamam sakkas advaita

36:26

was what you might call a johnny come lately so by the time shankaracharya came and the followers of shankaracharya and it

36:32

flowered the buddhists were already fading away so there wasn't a long consistent

36:38

debate there was but not enough so buddhists had no time to react against what these new vedantists were

36:45

saying the advaitans the new formulations of vedanta they had no time to react and the advaita reactions

36:51

against the buddhists if you see the classical texts they're very dismissive that these people are nihilists they're

36:57

saying that there's no nothing real which is unfair because nagarjuna dismisses that he says we are not

37:02

nihilists we're just saying even that is not true that there's no truth that's not true there is a particular truth

37:08

that's also not true so now so well i'll

37:13

walk through chandra kitty's presentation of his attack chandra kitty's works

37:19

have now become very important because they were transmitted to tibet and the greatest llamas in the tibetan tradition

37:26

they built upon chandra kitti's work so according to them chandrakriti is the right interpretation of nagarjuna who is

37:32

the right interpretation of buddha if you want to understand buddha philosophically you understand nagarjuna

37:38

you want to understand nagarjuna philosophically you understand chandra kitty among the great

37:44

tibetan masters of course there was no connection between them

37:49

who were in the high tibetan plateau himalayan plateaus five six hundred years ago working there on

37:54

chandra kitty for them india was this fabled land um cut off by the time india had descended

38:01

into tumult invasion warfare and general collapse and the establishment of the new mughal empire and all so they had

38:08

sort of lost touch with india and indian the buddhists also disappeared so the indians in general also had little

38:15

interest in the tibetan buddhists so they were cut off but they developed indian thought they

38:20

preserved it and developed it many of these texts were later recovered from tibet they had been lost when the

38:26

libraries in india had been burned so the important ones whom we studied at

38:33

harvard the tibetan masters song khapa who lived about 600 years ago

38:40

he is deserves to be widely known across the world because what nagarjuna is to

38:46

buddhism tibet i mean indian buddhism what shankaracharya is to vedanta sankhapa is to tibetan buddhism is that

38:53

important 600 years ago so for example the school that he

39:00

is the founder of our the main philosopher that's the school of the dalai lama there are multiple schools of

39:06

tibetan buddhism there's sarkyapa the kagyupa there is the ningmapa and the

39:11

galagpa the galoopa is a development based on the work of songkappa the

39:18

galoopa is the school of the dalai lama and the dalai lama always comes from the

39:23

their particular monks if you you can you can see them with the yellow hats so they're the gallup monks

39:30

they revere chandra kitty like nothing i mean they're like the greatest philosopher from india for them

39:35

nagarjuna and chandra kitty so what i'm saying is the development of chandra kitti's work the commentaries of

39:42

sankhapa another great tibetan master meepham who came later

39:49

who is sort of who takes into account multiple tibetan views and syncretizes them into sort of harmonizing tibetan

39:56

views and an opposite view the karma palama um who is

40:02

the ninth karmapa wang zhuk doji who lived up i think 400 years ago or so

40:09

who in fact attacked sankhapa so interpreting buddhism also there's a lot of debate

40:15

on all of this is based what i'm going to say why this because i worked on it of course but

40:21

also this is one of the most sophisticated attacks on the concept of atma

40:28

and we are going to see one of the most sophisticated the most sophisticated defense of the concept of atma so this

40:34

is what we are going to see um the seven point reasoning of chandra

40:39

kitty what is he going to refute that there is no independent self you are there he

40:45

doesn't deny but the idea that i am an immortal soul i am an atma i exist

40:51

eternally i am not the body not the mind then this self what is its relation to

40:56

you clearly you are there and yet you think you are an atma so what is that relationship of the atma to

41:02

this body mind um just by the way i will keep saying body mind because it's easiest for us

41:08

the buddhists not just tibetan buddhists not just chandra kitty all buddhists they talk about the five aggregates

41:14

instead of body mind they analyze it into five aggregates or five pillars or five heaps

41:21

what is this body mind first rupa skanda physical body the form the rupas gandha

41:28

uh physical body the body aggregate then there is vedana's kanda that is

41:33

feelings pleasurable painful neutral the sensations we get

41:38

vedanas ganda then there is sanskaraskanda thoughts in our mind mental formations

41:45

that's the third one mental the pillar the agreement aggregate mind

41:51

aggregate then we are aware we are aware all the time consciousness vigonas kanda

41:58

but this awareness remember these are flashes of consciousness moment to moment to moment

42:03

um then the last one is the uh began as kanda and then

42:11

the um the rupa vezana

42:17

uh the sanghya sanghya is the

42:23

the samskara and sangha the two kinds of mental scandals are there so the

42:28

conditioning mental conditioning and samskaras and sangia is the thoughts and feelings we get the

42:33

mind uh all the perceptions which come the five senses plus the mind the six

42:39

kinds of perceptions we have internal thinking and the things which are coming from outside

42:45

that's called the sangha so so rupas kanda

42:50

vedanas kanda sanggyas kanda samskar skanda and vignan

42:55

this together is exactly they're just trying to describe what you feel what i feel right now

43:01

i'm just going to call it body mind okay that's easiest body mind chandra kriti would have said panchayat the five

43:08

skanders five aggregates but just the same thing body mind for example we study vedanta we all know

43:15

pancha kosha it's pretty similar not exactly the same but pretty similar physical body

43:20

the anna maya kosha food sheath then the vital body prana maya the vital sheath

43:26

then the mental body the uh the manomaya then the intellect understanding the gyanamaya and then the

43:33

causal body the anandamaya but again you can just call it body mind

43:38

just what we have right now so what is the relationship of self atma

43:44

with this body mind that is the question he's going to examine this to examine this chandra

43:50

kitty uses the example of a chariot um so a chariot and it's parts why a

43:56

chariot i guess chariot was the most sophisticated cool thing you had in those days today you would have said an

44:01

suv or something like that but it works like that an suv and its parts you know the body of the suv the wheels and the

44:07

axle and the engine and steering and all of that and where is the suv the question is

44:14

what is the relationship of the chariot to its parts where is the

44:20

self what is the relationship of the so called self atma to the body mind with body mind everybody agrees it's there

44:26

nobody denies it but what is the relation of the self to the the hindus

44:31

and then by hindus whom do i mean foreign

44:39

they all claim that apart from the body-mind body mind and there is atma

44:46

what is the nature of the atma some will say it's pure consciousness what not but it's there separate independent

44:51

interacting all together so you have a trichotomous personality that is physical body

44:57

subtle body that is mind and the atma chandra kitty says not at all let's see

45:04

let's take a look first seven point reasoning first point

45:09

the um chariot is the same as its parts

45:16

and he says it can't be so second point i'll explain second point the chariot is something apart from its parts that's

45:22

even more ridiculous then the chariot is something that con that that is contained in the parts it

45:29

can't be so the chariot is something that contains its parts it can't be so then the chariot is something that

45:35

possesses its parts you know these are my parts like my hand my hair like that can't be so and then the sixth one would

45:43

be the chariot is just a collection of its parts that also is not possible and chariot is some just the shape that

45:49

emerges from its parts the chariot is the shape the configuration of its parts that also is not possible these are the

45:55

seven ways in which a chariot can be there can be related to the parts and none of them are viable chandra kit

46:01

is going to show exactly like that there is seven ways you can talk about an atma none of them are logical so there is no

46:08

atma so this is the outline let me dive into it first

46:13

the chariot is the parts uh is it literally the parts that is not true um

46:19

just the paths themselves of the charge then why would you use a term like chariot it's literally the axle and the

46:25

wheels and all and that's that that's it why why we call it a chariot if body mind is atma atma is literally

46:32

body mind then several problems emerge and notice all the hindus also agree with you in

46:37

the buddhist also atma is not body mind but he's just considering the possibilities the buddhist themselves chandrakeet himself

46:44

says if you just call this atma first of all it's a he calls it this

46:49

redundant redundancy then just call it body call it mind why are you calling it atma literally is nothing more to atma

46:55

than this then that's just the atma then just just the body mind why call it atma at all

47:00

then next it's not immortal it's not immortal you always claim it's an immortal atma it's not immortal you

47:06

also admit body dies third um third is that you always feel atma is one

47:14

it is one indivisible the body is many it's complex it's enormous number of parts

47:20

interacting changing all the time how can it be the atma you are talking about

47:25

notice advaita vedanta if you remember aparok chanubuti classes shankaracharya uses the same argument

47:31

atma is one the body is constituted of many therefore the atma is not the body

47:39

then many other problems like hindus buddhists also believe many lives are there if many lives are there the body does

47:46

not go across many lives body dies at the end of this life then it can't be the atma you're saying atma persists

47:51

over many lives and then this body does not perceive so so obviously pretty obviously the body is not the atma the

47:58

way you think you have the self eternal self oneself no

48:05

it's not there so the first point the chariot and the parts are not the same i mean

48:11

the the chariot cannot be the parts this is the first point was the chariot is the parts not possible the

48:18

atma is body-mind not possible and here is no real difference because

48:24

all the other hindu schools including the advaithans would clearly agree on the same grounds that the body-mind is

48:31

not atma is not the self good we are agreed here next let's go on

48:38

the next option the chariot is something different from the parts

48:43

and chandra kirti says that's ridiculous on the pace of it i mean not

49:01

you can even bring it available and keep it in the in the hall because there's it won't take any space at all the space is

49:06

taken only by the parts where is the chariot apart from the parts

49:12

so there is no chariot apart from the parts of the chariot clearly

49:18

where is this atma apart from the body here was the biggest attack this is the central attack of the buddhist you talk

49:24

about body mind i agree there is a body there is a mind there are the five aggregates but apart from this what is

49:32

the atma you're talking about demonstrate it nothing that you want to talk about

49:38

future lives memory all of those things don't require a separate independent eternal atma we

49:45

can demonstrate we buddhist can demonstrate multiple lifetimes memory all of these are possible without an

49:52

independent separate atma in fact with an independent separate abnormal these are not possible

49:57

so there's a lot of discussion about this [Music]

50:03

at this point you might think swami so many years you have been telling us not the body not the mind i'm the witness

50:10

the consciousness drink dris whatever you see is an object that which

50:15

sees is separate from the object didn't you tell us what about those arguments

50:21

see here in the scene you remember drikdrishaveka i am the witness whatever his experience is an object i am the

50:26

witness and the experiencer i am the awareness to which all these objects appear and this witness the

50:34

seer must be on principle separate from the scene or the panchakusha famous five sheets of

50:41

the human body from the annamaya pranam and the witness consciousness of that

50:48

how many times have you told us the story of the tenth man separate you could not separate it

50:54

because you are looking at the object this is the subject so you separate it's separate from the body-mind

51:00

or avastatria witness of waking dreaming deep sleep so isn't it separate from all of it the

51:06

consciousness actually you know no it isn't the swami you're pulling a fast one on

51:13

us now there's a point to it we'll see the point later on but it isn't

51:18

even shankaracharya if you remember after carefully

51:24

analyzing the body mind and showing that you the self cannot be the body mind you

51:29

are separate you are one the body is many you are unchanging the body is changing you are the witness the body is

51:36

the witness you are aware the body is not aware so all of these arguments he shows to

51:43

show that you are not the body but if you remember the 40th 41st 42nd verse of upper

51:49

auction of the very crucial he says there quite puzzlingly what good

51:55

is all this kim purushartha what will be served you have just proved that there is an atma

52:01

and there is a world and two separate realities it's not nonduality then why do you do this

52:07

there's a reason why why the advaitans do it in order to counter those who say body mind is the atma

52:15

our common our unreflective state of awareness is that i am this one

52:21

so i am body i am mine to convince us this is this can't be true that's the

52:26

only reason the advaitans attack the concept of body mind and self

52:32

the self cannot be body mind then what is the self we'll come to that

52:38

so actually this is where the buddhists and the advaitans together

52:44

differ from the hindu dualists the hindu dwellers the nayakas the

52:49

sankhyas yoga vaishaishika they all insist there is a self separate from body mind

52:55

atma and then they engage in long debate nearly thousand years debate

53:03

culminating with masters like udayanacharya on the niya side who gave multiple proofs this whole book which is

53:09

still studied in postgraduate philosophy departments in india indian philosophy departments

53:14

and it is manjali

53:21

nine proofs of the existence of god against the buddhists

53:26

multiple proofs of the existence of a separate eternal independent soul atma against the buddhists

53:32

so it's called atma tatwa viveka extremely subtle argument does it work according to the nayakas it does

53:39

according to most unbiased observers it's not so easy swami vivekananda points it out in the

53:46

fourth lecture on practical vedanta a tremendous buddhist attack here is the world it's a mass of change

53:53

here is the body it's a mass of change here is the mind it's a mass of change physical matter mental the um

54:00

stream of change apart from this where is this atma

54:05

use the vedantic logic oh but who is the witness of all of this that's the logic

54:10

i can see people vigorously yes we have heard you so many years last five six years you have been telling us the witness of all of this

54:16

not the object you are the tenth man witnessing all of this now don't get scared i'm going to cut

54:23

that down it's it's it isn't true why not you see let's see

54:29

and this can be quite scary and traumatic for hindus but the reason i'm doing this is at the

54:36

end of this process we end up with a deeper understanding of what vedant advaita vedantasi

54:42

we are going to leave the poor dualists out in the cold but we are going to see what advaita vedanta

54:49

really means and the emptiness school of buddhism what they really mean

54:54

so i'll quote vivekananda again this idea that i'm a continuous consciousness

55:00

literally i'm quoting vivekananda it seems he's saying anti-vedantic things this idea that i'm a continuous consciousness and thoughts feelings body

55:08

they're all continuously changing and i'm witnessing them he says it works as an argument

55:14

but nobody in practice can separate the two i am the witness of anger hate joy peace

55:23

restless mind i i say these things restless mind you are the one who experienced it um peaceful mind you are

55:30

the one who experienced it waking dreaming deep sleep you are the one who experienced it but vivekananda says and

55:36

chandra kitty would say he doesn't say because he never engaged with this but he would say

55:42

if they are separate show them separately if two things are separate my cloth

55:49

and my cap are separate i can show you the cloth without the cap i can show you the cap without the cloth

55:55

then i can demonstrate you can experience this separate existence show me

56:01

pure consciousness without any contents show me the contents of consciousness without consciousness

56:07

you can't nobody can because they don't exist separately

56:13

chandra kitty has this thing so what's going on here if i am experiencing the changing world and if you are saying

56:18

that i am not unchanging one unchanging consciousness you can't show them separately i see that you can't show

56:24

them separately um but then what's going on here how do you explain this chandra kitty has

56:32

an analogy which vedantins for good reasons never use the sheaves of hay leaning against each

56:39

other you know hey you bundle them up and keep them like this

56:44

but if you pull out one what happens to the other one it falls you the experiencer you the

56:50

consciousness and that the experience that the object of consciousness they lean against each other remove one the

56:56

other will fall you are the seer of what nagarjuna would say you see

57:01

right i'm seeing hearing smelling tasting touching what forms sounds smells tastes

57:08

form sounds taste do they exist without you the consciousness i can't say that

57:14

you the seer and the hearer and the smeller and the taster is it possible that you exist without

57:21

the objects which you are seeing hearing smelling tasting difficult to say

57:27

we vidantins will say no no no you know it's like when the object is gone

57:33

you are no longer the seer of the object but you remain not as a seer anymore

57:38

but then that's a kind of um you know like a accounting they do a little bit of back

57:45

calculation to make things fit make the books balance swami vigna

57:52

when he was swami in alhabad he had his own ways he would keep books of account

57:58

and then one day he couldn't make five rupees you know he couldn't account for five rupees then he put it down gok account

58:04

five five rupees somebody asked him what's the gok account swami he says god only knows

58:11

god you know now it balances

58:17

i am unchanging consciousness illumining all the changing phenomena of the world suppose the changing phenomena of the

58:23

world are not there can you show you yourself as unchanging consciousness sure in deep sleep changing phenomena of

58:30

the world stop and and i

58:35

shine forth into the blankness how do you know well i wake up and i tell you this

58:40

that's how i know no no no no and that might be all right you might

58:46

believe in that but that's not good philosophy i remember when i entered the madhyamaka class

58:52

emptiness class on emptiness so can you imagine intense class on nothingness you ask what are you studying there debating

58:58

fiercely nothing it's all empty the professor told me keep your

59:04

an advice outside the door swami because he knew i would mix it up with this so you learn it separately and then

59:12

but interestingly outside the class just outside the harvard yard i ran into this

59:18

buddhist lama lama migmar if you look him up later on i realize he's quite an imminent person

59:23

he is the buddhist chaplain tibetan buddhist chaplain for harvard university i just ran into him in the street and he

59:28

looked at me and said what are you doing here i said i'm studying your philosophy and he was very happy he wanted to know which books i'm studying and all of that

59:35

and he recommended some more books and then he said but you are a non-dualist an advisor monk i said yes

59:42

oh it's the same and but how it's the same we'll come to

59:48

it at the end so the second one that you are apart atma self is apart from

59:55

body and mind all the arguments that i have given are logically good vivekan themselves says

1:00:01

but who has ever seen it separately the pure consciousness by itself it

1:00:06

can't be logical you can't exp even if it's there you can't experience it you need body mind to certify

1:00:13

then chandra kitty says we are back to the hails the sheeps of hay one depending on the other

1:00:20

how do you know one exists without the other then the third option is

1:00:26

well does the chariot exist in the parts you know there is i see the parts so in

1:00:31

that there is a suv there is a chariot in in the parts of the chariot one

1:00:37

commentator tibetan commentator he says like a bowl in which berries are kept so

1:00:42

the parts of the chariot are there in that there is a chariot obviously not that that's silly that relationship is

1:00:48

also not there and the atma also nobody till today if you say body mind

1:00:54

is there there is an atma search the body however much you search the body do

1:00:59

surgery find out here in the heart somewhere the heart atmos there or in the brain somewhere inside there is the

1:01:05

atma philosophers have thought about it pineal gland descartes the point of the interaction

1:01:11

of the mind and body things like that but nothing it's just body the more and more you search it's just body

1:01:18

one doctor from scotland indian doctor he wrote to me that i had an epiphany i had

1:01:25

been examining scans of the body for the last few decades in my career just today i saw a scan and just struck me

1:01:33

i am not that there's no me in any of that it's just a machine it's a thing

1:01:38

it's a thing true there is no atma in this body i mean literally speaking we talk about

1:01:45

in there you know vedantic language you are the atma in there inner self

1:01:52

all right i'll take you seriously show me literally show me where is it inner how is it inner

1:01:59

upanishad

1:02:05

the self is the passenger and the body is the chariot

1:02:11

curiously chandra kitty's chariot doesn't have a passenger very tellingly

1:02:17

so passenger is in the suv in the chariot good let me exact let's examine the

1:02:22

chariot let's examine the body where is the passenger so no no no it's not the body you don't

1:02:29

understand it's the mind you're in the mind examine the mind where is the where is the atma you find only thoughts

1:02:35

memories ideas pleasure pain desire waking dreaming sleeping where is atma

1:02:42

in the mind where is this internal soul unchanging independent soul in the mind

1:02:48

david hume the great scottish philosopher he says i examine my internal states and i find a

1:02:55

steady precision of dispositions thoughts memories perceptions i find nothing corresponding

1:03:01

to a self um at this point you might say swami tenth

1:03:08

man observer i know but we won't go there so atma is not something contained chariot

1:03:13

is not contained in the parts like a like as the tibetan llama said like a

1:03:19

bowl and with berries in it there is the parts of the chariot in that there is a chariot no then this is the uh what is the third

1:03:25

option the fourth option is the reverse the parts are contained in the chariot

1:03:30

so chariot is the basis on which the parts exist that's also ridiculous i mean what does it mean

1:03:36

it's like saying there is a car in which there are the parts you might say it like that but you can't

1:03:42

talk of it you can't show me any anything's like a car apart from the parts you can show me a

1:03:47

a bowl apart from the berries but you can't show me a car apart from its parts

1:03:52

car is not a bowl in which the berries are put now this is actually a subtle point when you come to the atma because

1:03:58

vedantins talk about mystics talk about the ground of all existence as if there is a ground on which

1:04:05

everything has been put so atma is the ground of all existence

1:04:13

so is there any such ground on which body mind has been put there is an atma on which body mind rests

1:04:20

well vedantins don't mean it in that way we'll come to that what vedantins mean

1:04:25

but as a ground as a basis on which the parts exist there's there's no such

1:04:31

chariot there's no such atma on which the body mind hands and feet and thoughts and all are put like a like a

1:04:38

table and the table is the self no such thing is there who has ever seen such a thing

1:04:43

that's the fourth one fifth one was no no no you are just twisting my words

1:04:49

the dualist will say why when i say atma when i say soul i mean i

1:04:55

i am the possessor of this body mind in my body my hands my ears lama sanghapa

1:05:01

says sam kappa he says like devadatta who says my ears

1:05:07

so uh like that and sounds interesting how the tibetans

1:05:13

in writing the scriptures they use sanskrit names those are not indian names those were names those are not

1:05:18

tibetan names those are names which were used in ancient indian philosophical discourse

1:05:24

so devadatta says my ears like that atma is the one which possesses the body

1:05:31

my body my mind isn't it how the hindu dualists speak but look at the chariot and its parts is

1:05:38

there any chariot which possesses its parts the chariots say this is the suv say

1:05:43

this is my tyres and my engine and my is there any such suv apart from the parts

1:05:50

which says i am the owner of this this suv no i'm the owner of these parts no

1:05:58

there is no such owner in all of these i am somebody with all these body mind i

1:06:06

own this body mind i am in this body mind we all feel this so how does chandra

1:06:12

kitty explain this feeling he says it said not only him all buddhists say it's an illusion created

1:06:19

by the continuity of body mind they give the example of a chakra a

1:06:24

flame if you whirl it around it looks like a circle the fan which you see now it looks like a disc when it moves very

1:06:30

fast but it's just one point of flame moving fast similarly flashes of thoughts feelings emotions as they go

1:06:37

one after another without seizing you feel like you are a self

1:06:42

i am the self which possesses thoughts feelings emotions body but actually there are only these thoughts feelings

1:06:49

emotions body the changes of the body that's all that there is five skandas five pillars which are

1:06:55

continuously changing themselves that's all that there is according to the buddhists

1:07:01

now then this is the no possessor there is no self which possesses body mind you i

1:07:08

feel it you feel it it's not real it's a it's an illusion generated by the

1:07:13

body mind imagine in your dreams also you feel i am here talking to somebody when you wake up neither you were there

1:07:19

not that person was there so that feeling came that i am there but that was an illusion like that this illusion

1:07:25

generated by the continuously changing body mind then what is what more is there the

1:07:30

sixth option look the chariot is the parts

1:07:36

is the combination is that there's the parts there the chariot that's what you call the chariot the collection of the

1:07:42

parts not literally the parts themselves that was the first option but the collection of the parts

1:07:48

that's what i mean this collection of the parts of the chariot i atma is the collection of mind body

1:07:54

consciousness all of it together body mind is atma this collection but if you keep the collection of the parts

1:08:00

separately is that a chariot you keep a wheel here and the axle there and another wheel

1:08:05

there is that a chariot no that's just a collection of parts there is no chariot there

1:08:10

similarly in the continuously changing body mind body and mind

1:08:16

which collection are you talking about and if you collect them like that which which is the

1:08:22

atma then the last option would be it is the configuration

1:08:28

the shape look somebody might see an exasperation chandra kitty you are a great

1:08:34

philosopher you're confusing me it's a simple thing arrange the parts in a particular configuration in that way and that is

1:08:40

chariot you think yeah that's what it is right you arrange put the parts together fit

1:08:46

it together and that's the chariot but chandra kitty says my dear man don't you see then that's not and like an

1:08:53

eternal self which is existing apart from body mind

1:08:58

it's a shape which emerges from the parts of the chariot if you put them together in a particular way it emerges

1:09:04

the shape emerges it does not exist apart from the

1:09:09

part and that shape does not exist in the parts also the parts don't look like a chariot the wheel doesn't look like a

1:09:14

chariot the axle doesn't look like a chariot if you put them all nearby they don't look like a chariot arranged in a

1:09:20

particular way a particular shape emerges that shape you label chariot and you use

1:09:26

that chariot that the buddhist and chandra kitty does not deny but where is this in the same way where

1:09:33

is this eternal separate reality called atma if you say

1:09:39

living body is there thinking mind is there senses are working thoughts are coming understanding is going on

1:09:47

happiness misery is going on this thing i'm labeling as self fine

1:09:53

that's called the transactional self but there's no ultimate self there there's no eternal self there there is no one

1:10:00

eye who has gone from lifetime to lifetime no not even from moment to moment in the buddhist think of momented existence

1:10:06

this is real disappears another one comes up there's no eternal atma persisting across

1:10:12

these this changes so even the shape of the parts is not the chariot

1:10:18

so seven options uh all of them they if you examine them

1:10:24

and connect them to self and body mind you will find there's no way a self and atman could exist in this body mind

1:10:31

could could have any relation with this body mind no way you could understand this bodybind which makes sense as an

1:10:36

atma okay very quickly we have seen what the advaithin says

1:10:42

i'll quickly say what you know from an advertising perspective advaita has a very good answer to this

1:10:48

advaita says first of all body mind is not the atma the first one is body mind armor

1:10:54

literally the first option is chariot is the parts body mind is atma we

1:11:00

and chandra kitty shows it's not possible and as non-dualists we completely agree and all other hindu

1:11:05

schools also agree because they want to show atma separately second atma is separate from body mind and

1:11:11

chandra kitty shows it cannot be so there is no chariot apart from the parts similarly there is no atma apart

1:11:17

from body mind and all the arguments that the hindus show

1:11:23

the dualists show they can be faulted because you really cannot show them separately a limited self

1:11:30

atma cannot be demonstrated apart from one body mind as

1:11:36

vivekanth also says you can in logic you can say i am the continuous witness of all the changes show me in practice has

1:11:43

anyone this is his words has anyone been able to show them in practice separately

1:11:48

no here the advaitin says that we don't actually intend to say that we say that

1:11:55

we are saying that you are not the body mind to demonstrate that we show that you are the witness of the body mind but

1:12:00

we don't want to say that there is a separate witness of body mind age body mind is a separate witness no that's not

1:12:06

the that's not advaita vedanta that's actually sankhya we do this in order to say de haat

1:12:12

mavada in order to cut at the root of identification with body mind we have a natural tendency to cling to

1:12:18

the body mind and in order to show that we show that you cannot be the body mind that much only

1:12:25

then what what do you want to say what is the non-dualist response how do you want to establish the atman

1:12:31

the non-dualist response is very interesting and it's not covered by the seven-fold reasoning of chandra kitty

1:12:39

one example will make it very clear gold and ornaments one which i which i use

1:12:46

you have bracelets you have necklaces you have rings and they're all made of gold somebody comes and tells you that

1:12:52

the reality is gold not the reality is not actually a bracelet or a bracelet ring necklace

1:12:58

there are names there are particular forms they're users bracelet looks like this you put it on your wrist necklace

1:13:03

looks like this you put it on your neck ring looks like this you put it on your finger

1:13:08

so there's a names are different forms are different use is different but the material the reality of all of them is

1:13:13

gold that's the golden ornament example which advaita favors now apply to

1:13:20

the seven-fold reasoning you will see immediately what it means is there um

1:13:26

is gold the same as the necklace no point one gold is not the same as the

1:13:33

necklace gold can be the ring also gold can be the bracelet also gold can be something else

1:13:38

then second is is gold something apart from the ornaments no

1:13:44

that is the beauty of it when you say gold is something different from the ornaments what the advaithin

1:13:50

means is not that gold is another type of ornament there is a it is a separate reality

1:13:56

separate reality immediately we think that also there is body mind atma advertises not like that you can never

1:14:03

say necklace bracelet ring gold you can't do that

1:14:09

it's not a separate ornament but is it separate in a very deep sense

1:14:15

certainly because it is the reality which appears as go as necklace bracelet

1:14:20

ring you you the one and one limitless consciousness are the reality which

1:14:26

appears as the waker and your waking world as the dreamer and your dream world as the deep sleeper and the

1:14:31

blankness of deep sleep we are not saying the waker is somebody separate from the entire waking world

1:14:37

and body mind no no no the waker and the waking world including body mind they appear in one awareness

1:14:43

one limitless awareness chandra kitty says ah so you are saying

1:14:48

that the atman is the basis the ground it contains body mind no

1:14:55

again it's not that gold is like a bowl in which a necklace has been put

1:15:01

it's not like that it's not like that swami vivekan himself says how advaita settles this problem

1:15:07

this is not that there is a rope in which there is a snake it is the rope alone which is mistaken

1:15:13

to be the snake it is the gold alone which is taken as the necklace its not that gold is a

1:15:19

separate thing in which a necklace has been put that option also is rejected so it's not like that

1:15:26

it doesn't fall in that category the fourth category the opposite also is there

1:15:31

a gold in the necklace in the bracelet in the ring like you said is a chariot in the parts

1:15:40

is the atma in the body mind you might say if that inadvertently you might agree yes

1:15:46

yes there is gold in the necklace but that's not true it's not that there is a necklace in which some gold has been put

1:15:52

it's not that there is a wave in which some water has been put it is the gold alone with a particular

1:15:58

name form and function it's a necklace another name form and function which is the bracelet it is the water alone which

1:16:04

appears as wave small big foam you know drops of water tsunami waves

1:16:09

all are that water only it's not that water is something in which a wave has been put or a wave is

1:16:15

something in which water has been put so those are the third and fourth options in the chariot example sevenfold

1:16:21

reasoning is atma pure consciousness brahman the possessor

1:16:27

of body mind again use the golden necklace example is gold the possessor of a necklace

1:16:34

does gold go around wearing a necklace no they are not two separate entities

1:16:41

again you see that example answers the question so is the chariot just the parts the

1:16:48

collection of the parts there's no chariot which is a collection of the parts is the atma the collection of all of

1:16:54

this together all put all of them together is called atma all the necklaces to get necklaces and

1:17:00

bracelet and ring together is it called gold no gold can exist without you melt all of

1:17:06

them destroy all the necklaces just melt them down to still be gold change them into tiaras or whatever

1:17:12

still be gold so gold is not a collection of the

1:17:18

golden ornaments and finally it's the shape more so and gold is not the shape of a

1:17:25

necklace or a shape of a bracelet it's not a form not a particular form which is called

1:17:30

gold no more than a chariot is a particular shape emerging out of

1:17:36

parts so the seven fold reasoning it is effective

1:17:43

against the individual self which is put forth by the dualists

1:17:49

and it's difficult to answer this is one of the most sophisticated attacks of the mahayana buddhists against the concept

1:17:56

of atma but it the advaitic idea of self the philosophy

1:18:02

of self atma slips through this net i say i wrote that it slips through chandra kitties net

1:18:09

what actually chandra kitty would have made of this we don't know because he never got a

1:18:14

chance to engage with the non-dualists with advaithans but

1:18:19

one can see how amazingly similar the madhyamaka buddhism of tibet of

1:18:26

indo-indo-tibetan buddhism and advaita vedanta very similar often using same language it's like they're not exactly

1:18:33

the same but they use like mirror images one states the same truth uh negatively

1:18:41

the other one the dwaythens try to state the same truth positively the danger of each is this if you try to

1:18:48

state it negatively the danger is that you will be taken for a nihilist that you are ultimately saying nothing exists

1:18:55

it's unfair because nagarjuna himself has said we are not asadwa instead we are not saying that nothing exists

1:19:01

those who misunderstand emptiness in this way he says this is a

1:19:10

as a serpent falsely held if you hold a serpent in the wrong end you're going to get bitten

1:19:16

if you misunderstand emptiness is nothing you're going to get bitten you will not attain liberation on

1:19:21

nirvana the problem of misunderstanding

1:19:27

emptiness is that you end up with nihilism nothing the problem of misunderstanding advaita nondual vedanta

1:19:34

is that you end up with something you think that brahman is a thing atman is a thing it's not a thing

1:19:41

it's more real there's nothing no it's not nothing either it's more real than nothing and more

1:19:46

real than things also so i always put it this way it is no thing

1:19:53

no thing and this is something acceptable to both sides if you say brahman is nothing what do i mean by

1:19:58

that it's not an object to them if you say it's nothing then they will understand that it's now

1:20:04

you're not talking about an eternal reality you're not talking about nothing you are not talking about

1:20:10

interdependent existence of the the uh transactional reality what nagarjuna

1:20:16

called samriti so it will be acceptable to both

1:20:21

swami saradananda in his biography of sri rama krishna ramakrishna the great master he says

1:20:27

what the buddhists call emptiness we call fullness he says what they call shunyam we call it pundam

1:20:35

would the buddhists agree one book was remarkable book was suggested by buddhist scholar and

1:20:41

practitioner recently which i got progressive stages of meditation on emptiness progressive stages of

1:20:47

meditation on emptiness by a modern tibetan lama who has written

1:20:52

this he just tiny book he sums up the entire range of buddhist teaching in five stages

1:20:59

of understanding deeper and deeper understandings of emptiness first understanding is the theravada

1:21:05

understanding that there is a mass of change outside there's a massive change in the body and the mind here there is

1:21:11

no self that is the emptiness of the self first stage of understanding then he teaches how you meditate on that what

1:21:16

are the benefits of that second stage of understanding the mind only school yoga chara vigna mother who says

1:21:23

no no there is no mass of change outside it's all in the mind mind is a series of changes and in that appears a changing

1:21:30

external world there is really no external world at all it's all in the mind it's a series of changes and that's

1:21:36

that's the and creates an illusion of a continuous self mind only school chitta matra mind only

1:21:42

or vignavada and these are different names yogacara vignava the very ancient school going

1:21:48

back nearly to asubandhu 1600 1700 years

1:21:53

that's the second stage of emptiness there's no world also it's an appearance in the mind third stage of emptiness

1:22:00

there's no mind also that is the madhyamaka school the emptiness school world is empty mind

1:22:07

is empty how do you understand that remember the two sheaves of hay leaning on each other remove one the other one also will fall

1:22:13

then what's real won't say keep quiet if you say it you're wrong

1:22:18

like nagarjuna said if you say something and cut it down remember the fourfold logic

1:22:24

will you say you will say either it is wrong it's not wrong it is and is not wrong

1:22:30

neither is nor is not wrong so all those things he will prove wrong so the

1:22:36

emptiness school says neither there is a the real world a mind which imagines a world

1:22:43

not as an external world emptiness of world and um

1:22:48

the emptiness of the self of the mind and then among them the

1:22:54

madhyamaka emptiness school there are two varieties and these varieties developed in tibet actually they say that it was in india but they generally

1:23:01

developed it in tibet one is called swatantrika another

1:23:07

the independent argument school and the consequentialist school i will not go into that it's a huge huge

1:23:13

debate the books and books have been written on it and the tibetans spent some 500 years fighting over it

1:23:19

so it's it's a huge subject but basically the first school says emptiness of the

1:23:26

world emptiness of the self the last one the prasangi kamadhimaka

1:23:32

fourth school of emptiness they say that emptiness of emptiness emptiness is also

1:23:38

empty don't take shunyata as in reality i'm just saying this one thing but it's it's

1:23:44

too complex to say but that prasangi kamadhimaka is the

1:23:49

final school of buddhist tibetan start which is prevalent now that's what if

1:23:55

you go to learn buddhist philosophy from the dalai lama and his teachers and the

1:24:00

teachers there they will teach you prasang madhyamaka in fact in tibet

1:24:06

one way of cutting you down is to accuse you of being a swatantrika dhammaka independent argument

1:24:12

middle path emptiness school all right

1:24:19

so what what remains the last stage fifth one what this

1:24:25

lama calls maha madhyamaka the great middle path it's called the shentong it's something

1:24:31

that was suppressed the books were burned the monasteries were destroyed and converted into the consequentialist

1:24:37

school so there's some history behind it but whatever survives if you look at it what do they say

1:24:43

yes everything is empty fine emptiness of emptiness also but then where is it all happening what

1:24:49

is the truth of all of that he says there is this they say basic space of awareness in which

1:24:56

everything arises like dreams like constructions and fabrications like clouds

1:25:02

gathering together in a vast blue sky in this we use these terms in the clear light of the void

1:25:09

all of samsara and nirvana are arising and falling together you go from samsara

1:25:15

to nirvana by practicing all this and then you realize both are appearances even nirvana is not real

1:25:20

reality is this vast unlimited basic space of awareness which is literally the translation of the advaithic

1:25:29

this literally a very beautiful term the sky of consciousness

1:25:34

sky of awareness so literally atman or brahman

1:25:41

so at that stage the final development the maha mudra and this is something the

1:25:46

consequentialist madhyamaka the prasangi kamadhyamaka will not admit they will say our development is the last and what

1:25:53

i studied at harvard suggested that our development is the last but the llama outside harvard said it's the same

1:25:58

and what he meant was this last final stage this last final stage literally the two come together the advaita

1:26:05

vedanta the final development of advaita vedanta and the final development of tibetan buddhism they come together in

1:26:11

this non-dualist they will call it emptiness we call it fullness

1:26:17

they call it pure awareness we call it pure awareness and they said that is the very

1:26:22

nature they call it the buddha nature we call it brahman and that is that buddha nature there

1:26:28

it's there for everybody all the time in fact everybody is an appearance in that that's the only thing that there really

1:26:35

is but only thing that really is you can imagine chandra kitty sankhap and all an

1:26:41

alarm thing is no no no you can't say such things

1:26:49

i will end with srirama krishna will give the last word to sri ramakrishna in the collection of

1:26:54

sayings of sri ramakrishna the first saying collected by swami brahmananda sudama krishna devotee

1:27:00

hindu of hindus devotee of kali his choicest sayings and in that number

1:27:06

one he says when you know yourself you know god

1:27:12

all right that's still pretty hindu the next that's advaithic the next he says

1:27:17

what do you mean knowing yourself inquire into yourself where is this i in this body-mind he

1:27:24

says is it the hands is it the flesh is it the blood the bones as you inquire into the body and into the mind he says

1:27:31

i'm quoting from him you will find there is nothing corresponding to the eye

1:27:37

he says it's empty this is tibetan buddhist not even nagarjuna's language this is the

1:27:43

language of chandra kirti of songkhapa and it is empty

1:27:49

he says it's like peeling an onion you peel it and peel it and you think you'll come to an essence

1:27:55

that would be the hindu thinking you peel of physical vital mental intellectual and the causal

1:28:01

body you come to atma no no no he says you keep peeling you find nothing

1:28:09

and if he stops at that point he would be perfectly acceptable as the next song

1:28:16

but then he adds one more thing he says what remains is consciousness atma

1:28:24

that's where it comes together again somebody in the presence of sri ramakrishna said buddha

1:28:30

was and literally the word is nastic atheist who did not accept the ultimate reality

1:28:36

and suramar krishna said in bengali nasty kana java go mukebal te

1:28:41

why should he be an atheist atheist is too narrow a term who does

1:28:47

not accept that there is an ultimate reality nasty literally means one who doesn't accept the vedas and that is true buddha did deny at least the

1:28:54

ritualistic portion of the vedas but suramar krishna says why should he be a

1:28:59

nastic why should he be an atheist he could not express what he found in

1:29:06

language and then he says something which is startling

1:29:16

that means where it is between [Music]

1:29:23

is not and is between eternalism and between nihilism the middle path between

1:29:29

that that is precisely it today after listening to

1:29:35

the tibetan llamas and professor garfield and reading enormous amounts of handouts i can say the same thing

1:29:40

how did sriram krishna say this because of all the things he was exposed to he was never exposed to tibetan buddhism

1:29:47

if he had said it is beyond existence and non-existence beyond that's a very hindu language gita says this

1:29:55

brahman is not that something which is manifest or something which is unmanifest beyond the manifest and unmanifest is

1:30:02

brahman krishna says this to arjuna and the gita but between that language of between eternalism and

1:30:08

nihilism between asti and nasty that between language is peculiarly

1:30:13

buddhist and that also peculiarly tibetan buddhist so

1:30:19

yes um so at that point we will leave it

1:30:25

and i think yeah so this is sort of in in some of what about we

1:30:31

studied and what i went through and what i feel is my conclusion and i think

1:30:38

we can't look to the ancients for a conclusion because shankara and chandra kirti did not meet

1:30:43

and sankhapa did not meet maduzu and saraswati and others it's we have to do that groundwork a few traditional

1:30:50

um advaitans would agree with this many would not many tibetan llamas would not agree with

1:30:57

it but if you ask tibetan llamas of their view of advaita vedanta i mean that lama said it's the same but scholarly view they would say no it's a

1:31:04

kind of eternalism they say there is something called atma brahman separate from everything which exist but if you

1:31:09

look deeply that's not what we are saying this reality the very nature of this

1:31:14

reality is brahman they will say samsara nirvana are the same finally we also agree

1:31:22

god apartheid says there is no cessation no origination

1:31:27

no bondage no liberation no one making an effort for liberation and no one who is liberated this is the final

1:31:33

truth nagarjuna would give 100 marks to that they would shake hands

1:31:41

let me do a piece chant

1:31:53

[Music]

1:32:10

and others so that they may bless us with that vision with that intuitive insight which liberates us

1:32:17

from suffering from samsara which liberates us from samsara into nirvana and from which perspective we see we can

1:32:23

see that both samsara and nirvana are appearances in the reality that

1:32:29

we are our own inner reality good

1:32:36

[Music]

1:32:42

you