Relative Truth, Ultimate Truth

The Foundation of Buddhist Thought, Volume 2

Tashi Tsering, Gordon McDougall

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780861712717
• eBook ISBN: 9780861719471
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

Relative Truth, Ultimate Truth is a clear and remarkably practical presentation of a core Buddhist teaching on the nature of reality. Geshe Tashi Tsering provides readers with an excellent opportunity to enhance not only thier knowledge of Buddhism, but also a powerful means to profoundly enhance their view of the world.The Buddhist teaching of the "two truths" is the gateway to understanding the often-misunderstood philosophy of emptiness. This volume is an excellent source of support for anyone interested in cultivating a more holistic and transformative understanding of the world around them and ultimately of their own conciousness.

1 THE EVOLUTION OF BUDDHIST THOUGHT

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Logic and Emotion

THE LONG VIEW

IN THE VAST TEACHINGS given by the Buddha in the more than forty years between his enlightenment and his parinirvana, he addressed the fundamental philosophical questions of what is reality and how can we know it extensively and often. Behaving ethically and mastering the mind through meditation are important aspects of our lives, but so too is understanding the nature of reality. Quite simply, we suffer because we misconceive reality.

The main focus of Buddhist philosophy has always been the nature of reality. For over 2,500 years since the Buddha’s time, scholars have been studying his words in order to understand exactly what this reality is. In Buddhist philosophy, when we speak of how things exist and how we perceive they exist, we are talking about the two truths: ultimate truth and conventional, or relative, truth.

Coming to terms with the essence of Buddhist thought is not easy. There are many alien concepts and many very subtle ideas that will not make sense immediately or without effort. If we can see how vital this understanding is and apply ourselves diligently, things will become clearer as time passes. A long view is needed, and both the emotional and the logical sides of our nature need to be nurtured together. Only by developing a good heart will we truly become a better person, and only by seeing the reality of our situation will we be able to improve it in a truly meaningful way.

Why do we make mistakes? We need to explore this vital question to see that we suffer because we fail to see how things exist. Ourselves, other people, objects such as our possessions, the events in our lives—the things of which our world is comprised—are constantly misunderstood on a very subtle level, and it is this gap between reality and how we conceive reality that leads to not just some of our problems but all of our problems. That gap is called ignorance.

Our universe is made up of things and events. Some of these may be pure fantasies or simply not exist, but the vast majority exist and function, and at one level we are unmistaken in how we perceive them. That is conventional truth. At a more subtle level however, we fail to see the way they come into existence due to causes and conditions and the way we erroneously ascribe to them a concrete reality. The mode of existence of phenomena at this deeper “ultimate” level is ultimate truth. Narrowing the gap between how things appear to exist and how they actually exist is the focus of this book.

Based on misinformation, we make judgments, mistakes arise, and we suffer. The more accurate our vision of reality is, the more informed our judgments will be, and therefore fewer mistakes and less suffering will occur. Our habitual misreading of reality is so deep-rooted, however, that it is not simply a matter of studying it once and being cured. It takes time to make a true connection with the essence of Buddhist philosophy and to inculcate it within our daily lives on a sufficiently deep level that we can break our present harmful habits.

This is not abstract philosophy, nor is it an interesting but irrelevant mind game. This is the vital key to real happiness. As long as we are perpetually tied up in misconceptions about the nature of reality—in particular, as long as we see our own sense of identity as static and eternal—we will forever reify objects and situations, and due to this, we will continue to develop attachment and aversion. Locked into a worldview where “I” is the center and all else must serve the “I,” we have no space to help others and, paradoxically, no space to be happy.

The more egocentric we are, the tighter our mind is, and consequently the unhappier we are. Only by seeing how we misconceive both the “I” and the universe that this “I” inhabits will we be able to break away from the rigid me-me-me space we inhabit now and loosen up into a lighter, happier mindset that cherishes others. This is the goal.

HARNESSING OUR EMOTIONS

The purpose of Buddhist philosophy is to bring us to an accurate understanding of how the world exists in order to develop our minds to be of most benefit. We need to marry this logical side with our natural emotional side. Emotion alone will not take us very far. Compassion is vital, otherwise the selfish mind will lead us to harm others and, paradoxically, ourselves. However, if that compassion is not supported by the right view of reality, then it will be flawed. We have all seen people who are full of compassion but very short on wisdom and who, despite their good intentions, seem to harm more than help. We need love, compassion, altruism, and all the positive aspects of our emotional life, but we need wisdom as well. Right view and compassion conjoined give us an unbeatable tool to develop our full potential—the potential to free ourselves from both short-term and long-term suffering and to effectively help others out of their suffering.

The quest for the truth leads us through unfamiliar philosophies and alien cultures, and it takes a degree of faith that the early Buddhist philosophers were on the right track in their search. By “faith” I don’t mean a blind faith in religious dogma. Instead, I’m talking about a deeply felt conviction that because the ideas of Buddhism work on all the levels we do understand, those we cannot yet understand are, therefore, probably equally valid—it is just that we have not reached that level of understanding yet. As the wonderful Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore wrote:

Faith is a bird that feels the light

and sings when the dawn is still dark.²

I’m not saying that non-Buddhists blindly accept whereas Buddhists understand. Far from it! People of every religion and philosophy tend to hear the tenets of their own religion and simply accept them, rather than do the hard work of understanding them.

We need every tool at our disposal to shed light on the reality of our lives and break us free from the sloth of our mundane thinking. We have leisure, intelligence, an inquisitive nature that our culture does not suppress, and we have met teachings such as this. I think that when we are struggling with these very esoteric topics, there is a tendency to be overwhelmed. However, by carefully examining their importance and the rarity and preciousness of this opportunity we now have, we will be able to break through the fog of misunderstanding and start to see a glimmer of the meaning of the two truths.

Understanding emptiness (a synonym for ultimate truth) is difficult. Even His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that his study of emptiness has been a major aspect of his philosophical study since he was sixteen, but only now can he see some light at the end of the tunnel. Fortunately, we don’t need a full understanding of emptiness in order to benefit. In his Four Hundred Stanzas (Chatuhshataka), Aryadeva says:

Even those with few merits

Have no doubts about this Dharma [emptiness].

Even those who still have their doubts

Will tear [cyclic] existence to tatters.³

Just starting to doubt whether things and events exist inherently really goes a long way toward understanding reality. In this world of billions of people (and countless other sentient beings), very few really try to understand whether appearance matches reality. This doubt about the intrinsic nature of things is an exceptional quality. It actually approaches a real understanding of emptiness and, thus, of ultimate truth. To come to know how the world truly exists, we first need to know how it appears to exist for us; thus, it is vital to understand relative, or conventional, truth as well. In fact, one cannot become a fully realized being without understanding both conventional truth and ultimate truth.

We have freedom and intelligence and we know that through our study of the two truths there is the possibility that we can truly free ourselves from samsara. So really, we have no choice; we have to try, no matter how hard it is. Even having the smallest doubt that the world is exactly as we perceive it “tears cyclic existence to tatters.” That’s quite a challenge!

From my own side, I can see how routine and ordinary the vast majority of my thoughts and actions are. I wake up and simply follow the flow of my ordinary thoughts wherever they take me. Whether my thoughts move in a positive or a negative direction, my mind simply follows, like debris drifting on a river’s current. Generally, my mind is quite neutral and not very active. Of course, I act—I walk, eat, talk, read, and so forth—but I wouldn’t call that active. That is simply the mind and body trudging along the well-worn tracks of utterly routine and, for the most part, boring habits.

For a purposeful and fruitful life, therefore, we need a long vision that allows us to marry logic and emotion in ways that are meaningful. We need to address the fundamental questions that plague all of us. At the end of the day, the philosophy we accept must impact our everyday activities or it will end up a mere abstraction, utterly worthless.

But where exactly do the two truths fit in to our lives? How can they be more than a religious idea, a piece of dogma we are given to absorb somehow, perhaps by placing it on an altar and bowing before it? When we see a bar of chocolate, for instance, we generally feel no need to philosophize about it. (Of course, if we’re on a diet, that is another thing!) What do the two truths have to do with that?

Could studying itself be therapeutic, regardless of the truth of Buddhism’s claims? Perhaps we gain some psychological advantage just by investigating the question of what is real. If the two truths really do describe how things are, how does exploring that relationship become anything more than an intellectual exercise? How does it change our very perception and experience of the world? The process of finding the answer to this question is the process of enlightenment itself. It’s up to you how you approach it—religiously, philosophically, or therapeutically. To be successful, you will likely need to draw on each of these approaches at some point or other.

The Buddha showed us that the peace we all seek is not to be found in the extremes—neither in the reification of things and events nor in nihilistically denying they exist—but in the middle way. The middle ground between seeing things as utterly solid or as completely unreal is a very subtle place.

LISTENING, CONTEMPLATING, AND MEDITATING

Initially it is very important for us to read, listen, and discuss the various topics we are studying. Without having enough information there is nothing to contemplate, and if there is nothing to contemplate, then there is nothing to meditate on. To use the rather cruel traditional analogy, it is like a fingerless person trying to climb a mountain of ice—nothing to hold on to and no means of holding.

This first aspect of understanding, listening, is the initial step of our spiritual development, no matter what form it takes: listening, reading, discussing, or even watching His Holiness the Dalai Lama on a DVD.

As we embark on this voyage into the nature of reality, we need many different skills. We need to be selective in our reading and listening, sifting out the authentic texts from those that can lead us astray, so an element of discrimination is needed. The authentic texts, such as the sutras themselves and their commentaries, are often dense and couched in unfamiliar terms; we need a good deal of intelligence to tackle them. We also need perseverance, since to get at their actual meaning we will have to study them and listen to teachings on them from qualified masters again and again.

A Tibetan master has said that if the food is delicious and you don’t have any teeth, then you need to chew with your gums. We are presently toothless. (As well as fingerless—we’re in a bad way!) Just because it is hard to understand the great te...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
• Preface
• Editor’s Preface
• 1. The Evolution of Buddhist Thought
• 2. The Base and the Path within the Four Schools
• 3. The Vaibhashika School
• 4. The Sautrantika School
• 5. The Chittamatra School
• 6. The Madhyamaka School
• 7. Illusion and Reality
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index
• About the Authors
• The Foundation of Buddhist Thought
• About Wisdom Publications
• Also Available from The Foundation of Buddhist Thought Series
• Copyright