Idealism in the Lankavatara
Here is a message which I posted on 12 December 2003 on the Advaitin List. It should be compared with my article on Idealism in the Yoga Vasistha — the Yoga Vasistha being an Advaitin classic appreciated by Ramana Maharshi and many others. The context of the discussion is a certain troublesome passage from Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhashya or commentary on the Brahma Sutras, in which some think that he explicitly denies idealism, in particular 'Mahayana Buddhist idealism' (cf. B.S.B. II.ii.28 ).
As I said in my earlier message on the Yoga Vasistha, I consider both Advaita and Mahayana to be unmistakably idealistic, as vividly illustrated in the passages quoted from the Yoga Vasistha. Below, I quote some similar passages from an important Buddhist sutra called the Lankavatara, thus showing a profound similarity between Advaita and Mahayana Buddhism. (Yes, Mahayana is a vast tradition, but see my comments below.)
(Beginning of message)
Namaste Sri Ananda,
As Shri Shankara refutes the vijnyana-vadi idealists, he says that they can't have their cake and eat it. Vijnyana is a changing act of discerning mind, which differentiates one thing from another.
Thank you for this brilliant elucidation of a troublesome passage from the Brahma Sutra Bhashya, which nicely complements Sadanandaji's earlier brilliant explanation of some months ago.
Now please let me add the following, as a mere scholarly detail concerning Mahayana Buddhist 'idealism', in which I am also interested along with Advaita. I do not mean to start a tangential digression on Buddhism, so please nobody respond!
The discerning and discriminating 'vijnyana' type of idealism which you mention is definitely NOT advocated by the important Mahayana sutras (if by any). It is true that Mahayana is vast with many schools, but my strong impression, from having studied many important scriptures, is that the true Mahayana idealism is of the nondual variety, just like Advaita, based in a unitary consciousness and not in discriminative mind. It explicitly rejects this discriminative mind, as I will now show with an important example.
As I said, Mahayana is vast, but a key scripture is the Lankavatara Sutra, which is the foundational sutra for Zen Buddhism, which in turn is the dominant Buddhism today (at least in the West as well as among Asian intellectuals). Please consider the following eloquent and revealing passages from the Lankavatara (as translated by Suzuki) and see if they don't agree with your understanding of Advaitic nondual consciousness, as expounded in e.g. the Vivekachudamani, not to mention the passages from the Yoga Vasistha that I quoted earlier today. To me, the similarity is striking, with similar similes. I heartily recommend an actual comparison with my earlier post on the Yoga Vasistha. If anyone disagrees, then I can only throw up my hands in despair.
The Buddha is talking to an assembly of monks:
"All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. This is not comprehended by the philosophers and the ignorant, but those who thus see things see them truthfully. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination and, as they depend upon discrimination, they cling to dualism. The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing one's own image reflected in a mirror, or one's shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in a valley. People grasping their own shadows of discrimination become attached to this thing and that thing and failing to abandon dualism they go on forever discriminating and thus never attain tranquility. By tranquility is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realizable only within one's inmost consciousness.""Mahamati, since the ignorant and simple-minded, not knowing that the world is only something seen of the mind itself, cling to the multitudiousness of external objects, cling to the notions of beings and non-being, oness and otherness, bothness and non-bothness, existence and non-existence, eternity and non-eternity, and think that they have a self-nature of their own, and all of which rises from the discriminations of the mind and is perpetuated by habit-energy, and from which they are given over to false imagination. It is all like a mirage in which springs of water are seen as if they were real. They are thus imagined by animals who, made thirsty by the heat of the season, run after them. Animals not knowing that the springs are an hallucination of their own minds, do not realize that there are no such springs. In the same way, Mahamati, the ignorant and simple-minded, their minds burning with the fires of greed, anger and folly, finding delight in a world of multitudinous forms, their thoughts obsessed with ideas of birth, growth and destruction, not well understanding what is meant by existence and non-existence, and being impressed by erroneous discriminations and speculations since beginningless time, fall into the habit of grasping this and that and thereby becoming attached to them."
"It is like the city of the Gandharvas which the unwitting take to be a real city though it is not so in fact. The city appears as in a vision owing to their attachment to the memory of a city preserved in the mind as a seed; the city can thus be said to be both existent and non-existent. In the same way, clinging to the memory of erroneous speculations and doctrines accumulated since beginningless time, they hold fast to such ideas as oneness and otherness, being and non-being, and their thoughts are not at all clear as to what after all is only seen of the mind. It is like a man dreaming in his sleep of a country that seems to be filled with various men, women, elephants, horses, carts, pedestrians, villages, towns, hamlets, cows, buffalos, mansions, woods, mountains, rivers and lakes, and who moves about in that city until he is awakened. As he lies half awake, he recalls the city of his dreams and reviews his experiences there; what do you think, Mahamati, is this dreamer who is letting his mind dwell upon the various unrealities he has seen in his dream, - is he to be considered wise or foolish? In the same way, the ignorant and simple-minded who are favorably influenced by the erroneous views of the philosophers do not recognize that the views that are influencing them are only dream-like ideas originating in the mind itself, and consequently they are held fast by their notions of oneness and otherness, of being and non-being. It is like a painter's canvas on which the ignorant imagine they see the elevations and depressions of mountains and valleys."
"Then said Mahamati to the Blessed One: Why is it that the ignorant are given up to discrimination and the wise are not?"
"The Blessed One replied: it is because the ignorant cling to names, signs and ideas; as their minds move along these channels they feed on multiplicities of objects and fall into the notion of an ego-soul and what belongs to it; they make discriminations of good and bad among appearances and cling to the agreeable. As they thus cling there is a reversion to ignorance, and karma born of greed, anger and folly, is accumulated. As the accumulation of karma goes on they become imprisoned in a cocoon of discrimination and are thenceforth unable to free themselves from the round of birth and death."
(End of message)
Clearly, this version of Buddhist idealism does not distinguish mind as some distinct entity in itself, as Anada seems to imply for the Vijnanavadins. Rather, it is because of mind that the world is discriminated as being distinct from consciousness (or Self in Advaitin terminology).
Let us see how a major authority, Swami Krishnananda, describes the passage from the BSB under discussion. A convenient reference can be found here. He says:
According to the Buddhistic Idealists (Vijnanavadins), the external world is non-existent. They maintain that every phenomenon resolves itself into consciousness and idea without any reality corresponding to it. This is not correct. The external phenomena are not non-existent as they are actually witnessed by our senses of perception. The external world is an object of experience through the senses. It cannot therefore, be non-existent like the horns of a hare.
This is a pretty good paraphrase of what Shankara actually says in the BSB. Note that he agrees that the Vijnanavadins indeed claim that 'every phenomenon resolves itself into consciousness', so that the world is not distinct from consciousness. Then comes the crucial error which constantly causes Advaitins, including Shankara, to be confused about Vijnanavadins in particular, and Buddhist idealism in general. The claim is made that, according to the Vijnanavadins, the resolution of the world into consciousness implies that the world has no 'reality'. The Advaitins then claim that this cannot be correct, since the world is 'actually witnessed by our senses of perception'. It is not 'non-existent' like the 'horns of a hare'.
The error here is too childish to dwell on at length. When we 'see' the 'world', the Vijnanavadin interprets this as an illusion, like a dream or mirage, just as in the quoted passage from the Lankavatara. The simile of the dream is used throughout Mahayana Buddhism, as well as Advaita, and should lay to rest all discussion. The world is not claimed by the Buddhist to be absolutely unreal, like a square circle or the horns of a hare. It is only unreal as the dream is unreal, namely, there is no material substance distinct from consciousness, which somehow produces the perceptions in consciousness. (And these perceptions are in no way distinct from consciousness. Please don't try to split hairs by abusing language, e.g., by suggesting that the words I see a perception imply a distinction between the conscious 'I' and the 'perception'. We can intuitively appreciate that the 'consciousness' and the 'perception' are one and the same. At least, I can.)
In conclusion, it seems to me that the 'Shankara' of the BSB is being unfair to the Vijnanavadins, and his argument is surprisingly sloppy. I suspect that the 'Shankara' of the BSB, at least for this passage, consists of some argumentative scholars in the lineage of Shankara. In the Vivekachudamani, by contrast, there is clear idealism, as evidenced by the dream analogy, and there is also no argumentative streak. This work may be closer to the true spirit of Shankara and of Advaita. Even closer is the Yoga Vasistha, where unabashed idealism is simply undeniable. It is simply a fact that lesser students in the traditions of saints sometimes argue with each other, from a petty sense of rivalry. Some Buddhists are guilty of this too.
It is funny how Krishnananda can so cogently relate the Vijnanavadin argument, yet counter it so flimsily. He has merely memorized the so-called Shankara tradition of the BSB, at least as far as this particular discussion is concerned. This is the drawback of a tradition: it becomes the mere transmission of memory, static and stale. However, later Krishnananda alludes to the distinction between (seemingly) personal consciousness and the universal consciousness of Brahman (or God), which sustains all particular consciousnesses. As I have discussed elsewhere, this is a much more difficult and tantalizing topic, and Krishnananda has little to say.