Video
Audio
Good morning. Shall
we begin With the verses?
"That which originates dependently
does not cease and does
not arise, is not annihilated
and is not permanent,
Does not come and does not go,
Is not different and
not the same. To the true
teacher who reveals
this peace, the complete
pacification of constructs, to the perfect Buddha
I bow down."
And then we go back to
the opening verse of the
first chapter: The
Analysis of Conditions
And in that context we have looked at now two alternatives that are open As accounts of how in general terms things happen either causally dependent on other things or independent of anything that has a causal power--so randomly or uncaused. And we said that If we are to save the notion of real arising or defend that successfully against the thesis the claim that is made there in the opening verse then we will have to find a way of explaining arising within the framework of these four alternatives it has to be an account of arising that is causal arising or it has to be an account of arising that is uncaused and when we look at causes and conditions that produce the emergence of things then those causes and conditions..our successful account of how things really happen will have to be one that either claims that cause and effect are identical, It will have to be otherwise that cause and effect different from each other, cause and effect are both identical same and different. Yeah, so that's when we go with the causal explanation. If we cannot find a way to account for causal arising within these three Alternatives as one of these three alternatives then we have failed to account for it.
Is there anyone who can explain why that is so? Why unless we can explain arising based on causes and conditions in terms of these three options then we have failed to account for arising, why is that? I still don't have the names. Anyone would like to offer an explanation this should be very clear
Because otherwise it's blurry here what?
If it's not clear it's blurry here, that's logic.
Student: "Because the first two are kind of like opposites logical opposites, so they together cover the entire known universe so to speak if it's not this and not that then, yeah, everything is covered thereby. So I have a suspicion that even the third option will already seem to be a bit problematic even though it seems where we're heading in that direction as, um.. Yeah, maybe a cop out or something, but it's the third option is also a combination of these two so if the first two cannot be Yeah upheld and the third may also be problematic even though yeah, I think we're for now going in that direction." Yeah. Student: "I've been thinking about how to test for another option because you know we've been talking about how important it is to make sure there isn't another option. I just can't even think how to think about something. that's not caused and uncaused. You know I have a few ideas I sort of have ideas for those two, but not for the other one." So that's another way of doing it like we can think of some logical laws, laws of logic maybe, that is helpful depends who we are know How much we know about the laws of logic and how much trust we have in laws of logic. They also can take many forms, the laws of logic. And then as we do that as we try to understand with the help of whatever we know about logic in general, we also just ask ourselves very deeply why? Why is it like that? And then one reason is then I just can't think. I've tried really hard And it's just impossible for me to think of anything that wouldn't be either one of any one of these three options. But it's it's..we don't have to necessarily study logic to to progress with this, but it's necessary that we think it through individually. What is our our own
understanding? Like why wouldn't it be the case that there could be something that is neither? A causal rising which is not arising from itself not arising from another. It's not a combination either. It's neither of those. It seems like to a natural option.
Student: "And just going by what we have been discussing the last the last week it's it's not an option because it's then we are outside of the question because incorporated in the word arising Is either arising on another rising like the word in itself doesn't incorporate any other things, so if that's the question If I had to figure out something that was outside of it it wouldn't be answering the question."
"What if it was some kind of chaotic thing? It is still arising.." So chaos, I think that is the fourth option that is mentioned here--uncaused arising, when it's completely pure chaos. Things suddenly happen, but they are completely unpredictable.
So chaos is accounted for, not in the causal models, but under uncaused. So when you hear this type of account and this type of response, do you each feel that "Yeah, that's also where I'm coming from." Or what's your sort of..?
What is your response intellectually? Emotionally what have you? Do you feel that..
How ready are you to take the next step so to speak? The next step..
If yeah.. because as we have said no if we have with every step investigated really carefully and pressed hard to find a way to see if something lacking or something being mis- mistated and we just can't to the best of our capacity come up with any objection, then of course we can say, "But I still don't know," fine. But usually in life things don't work like that if that's something you you have tried really hard to object to but you spent a lot of time to the best of your capacity to to reject and object, and you found no way of doing it then you kind of have to go along on that basis. If you want to get anywhere. But there's no.. it is a choice. We can also still say, "But I still don't know," and nobody can force us to know It's something that comes from inside. Do I know or not? It's a very interesting point which will always be there. We can always opt out. At any point in this we can always say, "But in the end, I don't know." And then, yeah...
It's an interesting fact in itself. Student: "I think I'm still quite convinced by both. So I probably have to work past that." Yeah, yeah. No, that's all good. Yeah, but at least that that these three really are.. If we want to defend causal arising we have to find a way of doing it within sameness, difference, or both same and different.
Yeah, and I think the the basic laws of logic are not, classical logic are not that..
They have a lot of intuitive appeal too, no? If it isn't same then what? The denial of sameness is the affirmation of difference, no? Why is it that we can't say yes to same? It's because of difference So it takes us very naturally right into the second alternative, to deny the first, no? So where would that.. Then we can still keep The combination open, but where would any other option be possible? We start by saying, is it a reasonable question to ask: are causes and effects the same? And we say, "Yeah, that's an okay reason to ask. It's also a question that we should be able to answer. And we answered that question quite clearly because we said, "Well whatever we may want to say about the ultimate nature of things-- the way causes and effects come across--the way the only way I can think of them is one that is in terms of them being not the same. Otherwise if they were the same, how could I talk about cause and effect? Yeah, I couldn't right? So..if we then say, "Okay fine the first option is not an actual option. It would be a mistake to say that cause and effects are the same." Then by virtue of having done that we have said not same and what is not same means different, right? That's what we mean by 'different.' Is there any other understanding of difference than not same? Try also to think about that. Can we use the notion of 'different' in a way that doesn't mean 'not the same'?
It seems very difficult to construe different anything but in terms of a denial of sameness, no?
But then we could quite comfortably deny, defer or refute an account of cause and effect that says cause and effect are the same It still seems to leave a lot of options open for us. We even could accommodate the view that cause and effects are the same just by putting them a bit further down in this diagram so that they.. So that cause and effect being the same is not really cause and effect being 100% the same but a theory of illusion of some sort that the appearance of cause and effect as different is an illusion, but actually they are not. What we what we said though, is that this is not pure monism. It is a theory of illusion and illusion has to take into account how the illusion comes across. Otherwise, it's a useless theory So that that's all what we did when we refuted the first alternative. It seems to leave a lot of ground for us to build a new kind of explanation on. So we went on to the refutation of arising from other things arising from other things And then it was...we said, "Okay fine, if causes and effects are by nature different from each other, if that's just something that really characterizes effects and causes, then why is it that we want to bind them together?" Cause and effect has to be something that fits, no? So, why would it be a relevant description to say that cause and effect are different?
So is there anyone who who can come up with an explanation of how it is still right and justified to say that cause and effect should be understood as different from each other? Please think about it. And if we can't then we should also know that thereby we have refuted a very fundamental part of Buddhist philosophy.
Student: "I just had one example for this like.. So if you bang together two rocks and a spark comes out, that spark is different from the rocks." If you bang together sorry? "Two rocks." Yeah. "And then spark comes out, which lights a fire that is different from the rocks. Even though I see this is not agreed within the commentary." Yeah, but so two rocks hitting against each other and producing a spark so like we have the two rocks that hit each other in this way and then we have the.. if those are the cause and then the effect is the spark. But the two rocks are nevertheless what it takes to create that kind of spark. In other words, It doesn't work if I take two tennis balls and do the same. I'm not going to get any spark. So..because we say that this can cause that like you can tell me Thomas if you go and pick up those two stones and hit them together. You'll see you get a spark. In that way you're telling me something about a causal relationship. And relationship is not a story of difference.
There are things.. relationship ties together
So cause and effect appear different. That's what we already considered in the first alternative. We refuted the first alternative on the basis of the seeming appearance. But then the appearance of causal relationships on the other hand goes to refute difference.
Yeah. Student: "Hello, can hear me?" Yeah.
Can you speak?
Student: "Yes. I would like to say that I agree with.. with all these three options, these three categories: not from itself, not from another, not from both, and not uncaused. Nowhere does anything ever arise. And also there are four conditions: causal, objective, immediately preceding... There is no fifth condition and the next one as well. The second one is the one that I feel most comfortable with. The first one is the one that I...I agree with it, but I cannot really say that I understand it fully because it's like it's so deep that it's It's hard to really.. Yeah, make sense of it. And then I would like to comment on this seed relationship with this sprout--that my understanding of this is that the link there is information."
Information is passed, yeah? "Yeah, like same as in like humans and other growing animals and stuff information embedded and.." Right. "Maybe you add something that makes it grow but.." Right. So if information is passed from one to the other, which it would have to be in one way or the other, then who knows how? That's a very deep and important question, but if information can be passed and that's how a seed can grow into a.. can be passed on..then that's how a seed can go on and become as a sprout, then they clearly aren't the same, no? Because information goes from one to another. That they clearly aren't different-- it's not the right description of them to say that they are by nature different from each other. If they were by nature different then what could connect them? How could information contained in the seed become information contained in the sprout? That refutes clearly the notion of different causes and different effects. Student: "But why does it have to be different?" So then if they're not different we go back to number one. Then they're the same. "Yeah." And the same didn't work either Quite soon we'll have to consider the third option that combines the two. Student: "Yeah, I didn't really like try to put any of these options into the seed-sprout I just thought about the information thing. But I can't see any problem seeing that causal-objective and immediately-preceding should be like..."
The four conditions we'll look at hopefully quite soon. Yeah, but let's wait until we get there. Then we can try to understand what the four are and whether they are a good way of explaining arising. And then typically those four are meant as components in a framework that sees cause and effect as different. This is the Buddhist Abhidharmic account of causality, that there are four conditions that produce the effects and those conditions are different from their.. the effects that they produce. Okay, yep.
Student: "I have a question more so.. Your argument for or against difference seems to boil down to the to the statement that relation implies sameness or is somehow equivalent to sameness, like if two things are in relation they must be the same." At least not different, yeah? "Yeah, so I just..and if not different yeah, if not different is sameness, which is what you were saying a moment ago.." It's hard to think of not different in any other way but not right away we can make a difference conceptually it can seem to us that there's a there's a difference between just saying not not different and then saying they are the same. But when push comes to shove it's hard to think of not different in any other way than same, right? Student: "Right, and so if relation implies not different It does seem like. In addition to you know, the rocks and the spark being in relation to one another, seemingly causally, you know me and a tennis ball are also in relation somehow. Like, you know, all the relations can be established between things that we almost always say are different. And so I just feel like I would want a stronger account of why relation implies sameness in this way. Like there is a relation in some sense between tennis balls and spark. It's not one that we typically consider to be a causal relation, but in the sense of taking up space in the same vicinity perhaps you could imagine tennis balls and spark being in relation to one another." We are considering cause and effect here. We're talking about if things happen, if they are if they occur, either they are produced by causes and conditions or they aren't. And now what we are looking at is how do things.. how could things possibly arise if they are causally dependent? And then we're saying about those three options we can say that either cause and effect identical, that's a fair question to ask. Similarly we could ask the opposite question are cause and effect different from each other?
And if we fail to find a basis for defending either of those two accounts then we could say they are both. So we're not we are not..so we're talking about events where we do have a sense of cause and effect. So if first we have two rocks that produce a spark and then two tennis balls that don't, then the first..and if we say this is the kind of causal relationship that we're after--hitting two things and producing a sprout-- then the two rocks would be an example of cause and the two tennis ball would be an example of non-cause. Student: "Yes of the spark.." Yes. Just of the spark. They have many other things that they can do and be causes of. Student: "But the question is are the rocks the cause? It's like are the rocks different from the spark? That's the question at hand. And so the question at hand is about sameness or difference. My understanding of your argument for why they couldn't be different is that there's some kind of relation between rocks and spark that isn't there between tennis balls and spark." Yeah. "And so unless you're simply saying relation, as such, implies sameness--which I don't think you could say right? Because there's some relation that could be drawn between tennis balls and spark but what is the account that's being made of the specific kind of relation such that there could not be a difference given that that relation holds? Do you see what I am saying?" Yeah, I think so. In this case, I think it's useful to say just 'not different.' If the two.. if cause and effect... ..if the very idea of cause and effect does involve the notion of relationship then difference cannot be a proper description of those two. There is something that brings them together. Like the example of information for example, if information is passed whatever scientific account of the arising of the spark we would come up with, is also one that connects the two. So things that are things that are different entirely different from each other.. in other words what we're saying here is just pure difference is not a fact of cause and effect. Student: "Pure difference cannot possess the kind of relationship that spark and rocks possess." Yeah. "And why not? Pure difference If cause and effect are purely different then also.. Just as the rocks and the spark are purely different, so the tennis balls and the spark are purely different Why is it then that only in some cases is there a causal relationship and not in others? If cause and effect are as purely different from each other as any random non-cause and that given effect.
Student: "Just thinking out loud here, but I think there is an appeal in these kind of common sense objects like seeds and sprouts and rocks and sparks but I'm wondering if we're almost kind of aiming our analysis at a kind of too gross or too complex or compounded level because if we were to kind of play out the scenario of the rocks and sparks in slow motion, maybe I'm a bit rusty on my four conditions, but could it be that the rocks are conditions but you know not necessarily the principal cause? Because rocks obviously have a causal property to produce heat. And then something may happen between the rocks being banged together and there being spikes there that may be the cause of the spikes that may be some phenomenon that is related to heat, which is of course we're veering back again in the direction of cause and result being the same but I think my main point is, and this has been bugging me for a couple of days, we take these common sense objects it's nice because we can perceive them. But are we already kind of working on an inherently somewhat illusory level? And do we need to take our analysis down to a more almost fundamental level almost of reality?" Yeah, that's a very good question. So if we say that there's a property for producing heat that is there, yeah then as you said, then already we have found what it is that's the same. Is the heat the property for producing..
Is the property for producing heat something altogether different from heat? We could ask ourselves. That's a very tough stance to take, that the property for something the property for producing something is entirely different from that which is produced.
So it's important to.. This sense that we are talking about very coarse and simple objects and our very what to say, unsophisticated understanding of how things happen, and that's what we are analyzing here. So, okay we know that there are much more sophisticated and subtle ways of explaining causality.
And probably to the extent that very few of us here, if any, will feel that they have a good sense of what the best account of causality is but we know that there are some very very powerful accounts in the sciences that are proven successfully to produce amazing effects, no? So there's a depth and a complexity of this issue of causality that we are somehow completely ignoring here. But then again we can try to look at whatever scientific accounts we have of cause and effect, and simply look at the the principles and the concepts that are used there. And then we can again, ask basically the same question. I don't think it matters terribly much at all whether we consider simple, common sensical examples of, for example, two rocks that that when struck together produce a spark. Or whether we talk about deep theories of physics.
Of course when we construct a theory we are free to think In any way we like, yeah? And we are certainly capable of thinking all these things. That's another very important point that I haven't brought up yet that we haven't talked about, which is
the fact that we can think about causes and conditions as.= different and the fact that we can think about them as same and so on Remains a fact regardless of whatever we can show about the real nature of causes and conditions and they're not being the same, not being different, and so on.. We can still very well go on thinking about them as different and same and probably we will. We will keep thinking about the seed and the sprout as two different things, and at the same time when the plant grows there then we will say, "That's the--" as the classical example is, "That's the plant I planted." Even if it has grown and become a big tree we will speak about it in this way as if we say that the cause and the effect is the same. So we think in these wild ways that have no problem whatsoever dealing with or using notions of sameness and difference with respect to causes and effects. That happens and has done so since time without beginning and no matter how much analysis we put into this, that doesn't mean that we can't think in this way. Of course we can, but what we are very crucially doing here is just asking the simple question. Is it really so? Is our account of things not just a practical way of speaking? Because we know from experience that certain ways of speaking allow us to be successful and other ways of speaking close the door. And certain ways of thinking makes us able to get what we want avoid what we don't want. Other ways of thinking gets us into trouble. So we're not talking about whether that's the case, whether it's nice to think about cause and effect as same and different in such and such situation. It can certainly be so. But we are asking: when we say these things, when we think in these ways that may be more or less successful, do we actually capture anything about the way things actually are? That's the key question that we are asking. We're not talking anything about the utility of concepts, of these concepts, very fundamental concepts, but we are talking..same.. Cause and effect are the same. Is that actually a truthful statement? Or cause and effect are different. Is that speaking the truth? Is that saying things as they are? And we have said sameness does not work because it disregards the way the very idea of cause and effect is is an idea of something that is.. of two things that can be compared to each other. That's why we can identify the cause and so get the result. If they were the same, we couldn't do all of this. So the very idea of causality is one that relies on different on difference of cause and effect Is it then the case that that's how really and truly causes and effects are? That they are then different? No, because just as much as the very idea of causality involves a notion of difference so is it crucial for causes and effects to be causes and effects that they are connected. And purely different entities are not connected.
So the second alternative also falls Anyone who thinks that still, as we talked about before, anyone who.. keep thinking about it at home also and otherwise if you have either a clear idea of why things could nevertheless be not just things but causes and effects could nevertheless be different from each other despite what we just said? Despite us saying that pure difference denies relationship and so difference couldn't be a description of cause and effect. Do you have a way of
of nevertheless finding a place for the idea that cause and effect are different, as being a truth a true statement?
Student: "I'm still not there in having a pure definition, but what I wanted to ask you was so, in science of science we have.. there is ways of thinking that are reductionistic and, you know, hard science-wise like we do about the stone and then there are ways of thinking that are more, you know, socially looking at the social reality. I mean, I don't know where I'm putting myself by already making these definitions, but I was just wondering It's that still applicable to constructs? I know we talked about it yesterday, but.. yeah the way I perceive reality or speech, you know which is also reality, so it's not only stones and atoms, but How would that..how does reasoning apply? I'm just trying to get an idea of.." "So, okay, let me.. so speech--let's say speech-level, like construction, so we are saying words. They are not physical like stones." Okay, right, right. "And then there is some thinking which is, I mean that's also a label but it's thought something is..I'm imagining something that is not coming out of my mouth. And that's also also real, a reality, right?" Mm-hmm. "So..my question is does that still apply? Because that is for me just as important to look at like refuting. Or is that outside of what we are investigating here? How would I refute my speech? How would I look at causality in speech? How would I look at causality in thoughts?"
You mean the concept of? "Yeah, like what if I had to.. Okay, let me say, my aim is to see if Nāgārjuna is right that nothing is arising, right? So we're looking at causality. When I say something You know and then do you say something? That's a form of causality." Yeah. "If I associate if I think about you know, an elephant and then a picture of an elephant comes up in my head that's how it feels like that's also a certain form of causality. So I'm looking at causality that it's not you know touchable. Is that? How would you apply that? I'm just a bit confused as you can hear." So you gave two examples: it's like you say something and then I say something, like right now, and so it's the same principle. Because you said something, you can you can depend on me--I mean you won't know for sure whether I'm going to say something--but you have a quite justified expectation that I'm going to say something back. If you are asking a question in this kind of situation, no? So in other words that cause your speech act is one that has effects of this kind that is happening now that somebody else expects, you know? So if you said that my speech act and yours--those two are entirely different. There's this one here and that one there and they are just purely different. Why does this connection happen? And then secondly..what was it? Student: "It was that thought-level so, um.. You know, I mean it could be I'm just saying that the non the non- real, non-physical stuff. So yeah, like I'm thinking about an elephant and then a pink elephant comes up to my mind." So whatever theory we have about how concepts work and mental appearances and so on and so forth Within the theory--whether it's a theory we have adopted or one that we have developed ourselves-- what you just said: "I think of it and then some kind of appearance occurs in my mind." It's cause and effect in the same way. If you are thinking of the elephant and the appearance of the elephant were utterly distinct entities just as different from your thinking of my hat, what to say.. if you're thinking of the elephant would be just as different from the appearance of the elephant in your mind as the appearance of my hat in your mind then Why is it that it's not like that? Why is it that when you think of elephant you get to see an elephant and not my hat? So if-- if cause and effect were purely different, when you thought of the elephant, you might just as well get to see my hat. Or to To see anything else in the whole world. There's something that connects Student: "Yeah, that was my question. So I just apply it to anything and everything on each--whatever comes up, actually, basically. Whatever it's physical or mental social or whatever?" Yeah. That's the amazing thing. We're dealing with very very wide categories, yeah? That do seem to kept to it's not that we have to then think, "Oh, but in this particular context same and different doesn't really work. Here's a kind of--at least I don't think so. Yeah, please feel free to obviously, you should try very hard to find some counter example. But amazingly wherever we look whether it's very crude thinking, whether it's very subtle, very complex, whether it's very simple--everything seems to fall into these categories of same different when we talk about causality. And that's why the implications of what we get to understand are so enormous. So now..
if that is the case that we have now refuted the first alternative and the second also we have said that the very idea of causality makes it so that we cannot say cause and effect are the same because the cause and effect clearly stand out as not just the same. And if we also say that cause and effect couldn't be simply different from each other because we do notice these causal relationships. Our whole life is structured in terms of these causal relationships. If it weren't for our perception of causal relationships, we certainly wouldn't be where we are. So since causal relationship involves commonality and indeed relation, then just as hopeless as the idea of identical cause and effect is, in the same way cause and effect being purely different is also a hopeless idea. Of course, that's not true. But when we talk about cause and effect then it seems we still have to use these concepts nonetheless, no? We have to say here's a cause and here's an effect. You see, seed is one thing effect--the sprout--is another. So we use the notion of different and then at the same time we have to say but you know the seed is the cause of the sprout so if you put it in the ground and if you give it some water and some sunshine and so on then you know, the seed will transform and and begin to to shoot a sprout and that will grow into a plant.
So in other words we say that the world is made of things that aren't just different from each other. These cause..the very idea of cause and effect implies commonality and relationship and so this world is not made of different things. As indeed very venerable and powerful masters of Buddhist philosophy would otherwise. often say that this world is made of different things. That is not true but..
So we still have to think and speak in this way using both sameness and difference. So how about the third alternative? That seems to be then where we are driven to..
So about now because we had...some of us met to discuss a little further about these matters yesterday and we considered the philosophy of the great Buddhist master Dharmakīrti who indeed is the hallmark of his philosophy to say this, that the real things are all different from each other. The world is made of of things that are different from each other. And then we yeah, talked about the critique of the second alternative that things arise from things that are different from themselves and when I left when went home I just.. to my mind came Śāntarakṣita's... Okay, this is a little digression but I think it's worth it anyway, yeah? This issue..
Because the framework developed by the Buddhist logicians has been so incredibly successful and influential it is something that as a Buddhist one is sort of hard-pressed to say, "Well really in the end it doesn't make sense." So we were talking about that yesterday: Do we really have to say that or not? If we are Buddhists, or think of ourselves as Buddhists would like to be Buddhists then it's easy to dismiss Sāṃkhya perhaps and say, "Yeah, the Sāṃkhya's are wrong. The Buddhist will have it right." But when it comes to the Buddhist point of view and then we see that the the Buddhist point of view seems to be fundamentally wrong. Then what do we do? So that's what we were talking about. Then some philosophers in of Mādhyamaka, they make a big effort to incorporate the Dharmakīrti approach to logic and epistemology and others say that that is completely useless like yeah, why would you even try?
But then what I thought of when walking home is how the master who is sort of the classic example of someone who really embodied and incorporates the logic and epistemology of Dharmakīrti into a Mādhyamaka context, namely Śāntarakṣita. He himself says about this that it is compelling only as long as you don't investigate This is quite amazing, no? Like he makes an enormous.. He lays claim to being yeah, I want to say in India probably one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers at all. Some I've heard say that Śāntarakṣita is more influential than Nāgārjuna, and yet.. So he certainly does this, he incorporates Candrakīrtian thinking into a Mādhyamaka context. But at the same time he says very clearly that this marvelous system is compelling only as long as you don't investigate. It's quite amazing. So now about the both alternative. So what about that? The trouble with both is that it is
The trouble with both is that it is a combination of two things that we have found to be
not just partially successful, but 100% unsuccessful in terms of accounting for the relationship between cause and effect. If it were that there was something quite right about sameness and something quite right about difference, then we could we could make a combination out of it and say, "yeah. Just get the good part from sameness and the good part from difference and then you mix it together and you have the true story. But we have found that the idea of sameness simply has nothing to do with the idea of cause and effect and we have found that the idea of pure difference simply has nothing to do with cause and effect. So how could we expect that bringing two completely failed attempts at explaining cause and effect to be the solution to our problem? Please try and think about that. Yeah before we go one question.
Student: "I mean for that I think that they don't work exclusively, right? Like sameness alone doesn't work and difference alone doesn't work. But together it's different like the whole is different than the parts separate. So like just as if we had different parts of a computer it doesn't make a computer. And alone they don't work. And we couldn't say that that is a computer. But when we put them all together we get something that's different from what we had at the beginning in a way and at the same time
What we're saying right, it arises in a way that's a combination of two, like the different parts together can make up something that will work, that separate wouldn't. But I don't think that because alone they didn't work they can't work together. I don't think that rules it out." So we have to talk about it in this way, as you say, you know, that we get something that is different. There's a computer that is up and running is something very different from the parts when they lay there in front of us. But it's the same parts. So in other words, we have to talk about sameness just as we have to talk about difference. But where do we get the license to talk about either one of them from? We're forced to it. We can't make sense of anything without thinking in these words and yet when we look closer at what we're saying we find nothing. So on that note, let's let's stop here. Try to think really well about this at home and when you..
when you come to some interesting point, then try to just pause and acknowledge where you're at. I think that that is a way that we can sort of try to connect with the resting approach. Whenever you feel that you have seen something or wherever you feel that something has become completely incomprehensible-- whenever you feel that you have... your big question mark or whenever you think "aha!" Try to not just ignore that event but try to to sort of go with it a little bit and it can give some special energy to the whole enterprise. Thank you very much.
And in that context we have looked at now two alternatives that are open As accounts of how in general terms things happen either causally dependent on other things or independent of anything that has a causal power--so randomly or uncaused. And we said that If we are to save the notion of real arising or defend that successfully against the thesis the claim that is made there in the opening verse then we will have to find a way of explaining arising within the framework of these four alternatives it has to be an account of arising that is causal arising or it has to be an account of arising that is uncaused and when we look at causes and conditions that produce the emergence of things then those causes and conditions..our successful account of how things really happen will have to be one that either claims that cause and effect are identical, It will have to be otherwise that cause and effect different from each other, cause and effect are both identical same and different. Yeah, so that's when we go with the causal explanation. If we cannot find a way to account for causal arising within these three Alternatives as one of these three alternatives then we have failed to account for it.
Is there anyone who can explain why that is so? Why unless we can explain arising based on causes and conditions in terms of these three options then we have failed to account for arising, why is that? I still don't have the names. Anyone would like to offer an explanation this should be very clear
Because otherwise it's blurry here what?
If it's not clear it's blurry here, that's logic.
Student: "Because the first two are kind of like opposites logical opposites, so they together cover the entire known universe so to speak if it's not this and not that then, yeah, everything is covered thereby. So I have a suspicion that even the third option will already seem to be a bit problematic even though it seems where we're heading in that direction as, um.. Yeah, maybe a cop out or something, but it's the third option is also a combination of these two so if the first two cannot be Yeah upheld and the third may also be problematic even though yeah, I think we're for now going in that direction." Yeah. Student: "I've been thinking about how to test for another option because you know we've been talking about how important it is to make sure there isn't another option. I just can't even think how to think about something. that's not caused and uncaused. You know I have a few ideas I sort of have ideas for those two, but not for the other one." So that's another way of doing it like we can think of some logical laws, laws of logic maybe, that is helpful depends who we are know How much we know about the laws of logic and how much trust we have in laws of logic. They also can take many forms, the laws of logic. And then as we do that as we try to understand with the help of whatever we know about logic in general, we also just ask ourselves very deeply why? Why is it like that? And then one reason is then I just can't think. I've tried really hard And it's just impossible for me to think of anything that wouldn't be either one of any one of these three options. But it's it's..we don't have to necessarily study logic to to progress with this, but it's necessary that we think it through individually. What is our our own
understanding? Like why wouldn't it be the case that there could be something that is neither? A causal rising which is not arising from itself not arising from another. It's not a combination either. It's neither of those. It seems like to a natural option.
Student: "And just going by what we have been discussing the last the last week it's it's not an option because it's then we are outside of the question because incorporated in the word arising Is either arising on another rising like the word in itself doesn't incorporate any other things, so if that's the question If I had to figure out something that was outside of it it wouldn't be answering the question."
"What if it was some kind of chaotic thing? It is still arising.." So chaos, I think that is the fourth option that is mentioned here--uncaused arising, when it's completely pure chaos. Things suddenly happen, but they are completely unpredictable.
So chaos is accounted for, not in the causal models, but under uncaused. So when you hear this type of account and this type of response, do you each feel that "Yeah, that's also where I'm coming from." Or what's your sort of..?
What is your response intellectually? Emotionally what have you? Do you feel that..
How ready are you to take the next step so to speak? The next step..
If yeah.. because as we have said no if we have with every step investigated really carefully and pressed hard to find a way to see if something lacking or something being mis- mistated and we just can't to the best of our capacity come up with any objection, then of course we can say, "But I still don't know," fine. But usually in life things don't work like that if that's something you you have tried really hard to object to but you spent a lot of time to the best of your capacity to to reject and object, and you found no way of doing it then you kind of have to go along on that basis. If you want to get anywhere. But there's no.. it is a choice. We can also still say, "But I still don't know," and nobody can force us to know It's something that comes from inside. Do I know or not? It's a very interesting point which will always be there. We can always opt out. At any point in this we can always say, "But in the end, I don't know." And then, yeah...
It's an interesting fact in itself. Student: "I think I'm still quite convinced by both. So I probably have to work past that." Yeah, yeah. No, that's all good. Yeah, but at least that that these three really are.. If we want to defend causal arising we have to find a way of doing it within sameness, difference, or both same and different.
Yeah, and I think the the basic laws of logic are not, classical logic are not that..
They have a lot of intuitive appeal too, no? If it isn't same then what? The denial of sameness is the affirmation of difference, no? Why is it that we can't say yes to same? It's because of difference So it takes us very naturally right into the second alternative, to deny the first, no? So where would that.. Then we can still keep The combination open, but where would any other option be possible? We start by saying, is it a reasonable question to ask: are causes and effects the same? And we say, "Yeah, that's an okay reason to ask. It's also a question that we should be able to answer. And we answered that question quite clearly because we said, "Well whatever we may want to say about the ultimate nature of things-- the way causes and effects come across--the way the only way I can think of them is one that is in terms of them being not the same. Otherwise if they were the same, how could I talk about cause and effect? Yeah, I couldn't right? So..if we then say, "Okay fine the first option is not an actual option. It would be a mistake to say that cause and effects are the same." Then by virtue of having done that we have said not same and what is not same means different, right? That's what we mean by 'different.' Is there any other understanding of difference than not same? Try also to think about that. Can we use the notion of 'different' in a way that doesn't mean 'not the same'?
It seems very difficult to construe different anything but in terms of a denial of sameness, no?
But then we could quite comfortably deny, defer or refute an account of cause and effect that says cause and effect are the same It still seems to leave a lot of options open for us. We even could accommodate the view that cause and effects are the same just by putting them a bit further down in this diagram so that they.. So that cause and effect being the same is not really cause and effect being 100% the same but a theory of illusion of some sort that the appearance of cause and effect as different is an illusion, but actually they are not. What we what we said though, is that this is not pure monism. It is a theory of illusion and illusion has to take into account how the illusion comes across. Otherwise, it's a useless theory So that that's all what we did when we refuted the first alternative. It seems to leave a lot of ground for us to build a new kind of explanation on. So we went on to the refutation of arising from other things arising from other things And then it was...we said, "Okay fine, if causes and effects are by nature different from each other, if that's just something that really characterizes effects and causes, then why is it that we want to bind them together?" Cause and effect has to be something that fits, no? So, why would it be a relevant description to say that cause and effect are different?
So is there anyone who who can come up with an explanation of how it is still right and justified to say that cause and effect should be understood as different from each other? Please think about it. And if we can't then we should also know that thereby we have refuted a very fundamental part of Buddhist philosophy.
Student: "I just had one example for this like.. So if you bang together two rocks and a spark comes out, that spark is different from the rocks." If you bang together sorry? "Two rocks." Yeah. "And then spark comes out, which lights a fire that is different from the rocks. Even though I see this is not agreed within the commentary." Yeah, but so two rocks hitting against each other and producing a spark so like we have the two rocks that hit each other in this way and then we have the.. if those are the cause and then the effect is the spark. But the two rocks are nevertheless what it takes to create that kind of spark. In other words, It doesn't work if I take two tennis balls and do the same. I'm not going to get any spark. So..because we say that this can cause that like you can tell me Thomas if you go and pick up those two stones and hit them together. You'll see you get a spark. In that way you're telling me something about a causal relationship. And relationship is not a story of difference.
There are things.. relationship ties together
So cause and effect appear different. That's what we already considered in the first alternative. We refuted the first alternative on the basis of the seeming appearance. But then the appearance of causal relationships on the other hand goes to refute difference.
Yeah. Student: "Hello, can hear me?" Yeah.
Can you speak?
Student: "Yes. I would like to say that I agree with.. with all these three options, these three categories: not from itself, not from another, not from both, and not uncaused. Nowhere does anything ever arise. And also there are four conditions: causal, objective, immediately preceding... There is no fifth condition and the next one as well. The second one is the one that I feel most comfortable with. The first one is the one that I...I agree with it, but I cannot really say that I understand it fully because it's like it's so deep that it's It's hard to really.. Yeah, make sense of it. And then I would like to comment on this seed relationship with this sprout--that my understanding of this is that the link there is information."
Information is passed, yeah? "Yeah, like same as in like humans and other growing animals and stuff information embedded and.." Right. "Maybe you add something that makes it grow but.." Right. So if information is passed from one to the other, which it would have to be in one way or the other, then who knows how? That's a very deep and important question, but if information can be passed and that's how a seed can grow into a.. can be passed on..then that's how a seed can go on and become as a sprout, then they clearly aren't the same, no? Because information goes from one to another. That they clearly aren't different-- it's not the right description of them to say that they are by nature different from each other. If they were by nature different then what could connect them? How could information contained in the seed become information contained in the sprout? That refutes clearly the notion of different causes and different effects. Student: "But why does it have to be different?" So then if they're not different we go back to number one. Then they're the same. "Yeah." And the same didn't work either Quite soon we'll have to consider the third option that combines the two. Student: "Yeah, I didn't really like try to put any of these options into the seed-sprout I just thought about the information thing. But I can't see any problem seeing that causal-objective and immediately-preceding should be like..."
The four conditions we'll look at hopefully quite soon. Yeah, but let's wait until we get there. Then we can try to understand what the four are and whether they are a good way of explaining arising. And then typically those four are meant as components in a framework that sees cause and effect as different. This is the Buddhist Abhidharmic account of causality, that there are four conditions that produce the effects and those conditions are different from their.. the effects that they produce. Okay, yep.
Student: "I have a question more so.. Your argument for or against difference seems to boil down to the to the statement that relation implies sameness or is somehow equivalent to sameness, like if two things are in relation they must be the same." At least not different, yeah? "Yeah, so I just..and if not different yeah, if not different is sameness, which is what you were saying a moment ago.." It's hard to think of not different in any other way but not right away we can make a difference conceptually it can seem to us that there's a there's a difference between just saying not not different and then saying they are the same. But when push comes to shove it's hard to think of not different in any other way than same, right? Student: "Right, and so if relation implies not different It does seem like. In addition to you know, the rocks and the spark being in relation to one another, seemingly causally, you know me and a tennis ball are also in relation somehow. Like, you know, all the relations can be established between things that we almost always say are different. And so I just feel like I would want a stronger account of why relation implies sameness in this way. Like there is a relation in some sense between tennis balls and spark. It's not one that we typically consider to be a causal relation, but in the sense of taking up space in the same vicinity perhaps you could imagine tennis balls and spark being in relation to one another." We are considering cause and effect here. We're talking about if things happen, if they are if they occur, either they are produced by causes and conditions or they aren't. And now what we are looking at is how do things.. how could things possibly arise if they are causally dependent? And then we're saying about those three options we can say that either cause and effect identical, that's a fair question to ask. Similarly we could ask the opposite question are cause and effect different from each other?
And if we fail to find a basis for defending either of those two accounts then we could say they are both. So we're not we are not..so we're talking about events where we do have a sense of cause and effect. So if first we have two rocks that produce a spark and then two tennis balls that don't, then the first..and if we say this is the kind of causal relationship that we're after--hitting two things and producing a sprout-- then the two rocks would be an example of cause and the two tennis ball would be an example of non-cause. Student: "Yes of the spark.." Yes. Just of the spark. They have many other things that they can do and be causes of. Student: "But the question is are the rocks the cause? It's like are the rocks different from the spark? That's the question at hand. And so the question at hand is about sameness or difference. My understanding of your argument for why they couldn't be different is that there's some kind of relation between rocks and spark that isn't there between tennis balls and spark." Yeah. "And so unless you're simply saying relation, as such, implies sameness--which I don't think you could say right? Because there's some relation that could be drawn between tennis balls and spark but what is the account that's being made of the specific kind of relation such that there could not be a difference given that that relation holds? Do you see what I am saying?" Yeah, I think so. In this case, I think it's useful to say just 'not different.' If the two.. if cause and effect... ..if the very idea of cause and effect does involve the notion of relationship then difference cannot be a proper description of those two. There is something that brings them together. Like the example of information for example, if information is passed whatever scientific account of the arising of the spark we would come up with, is also one that connects the two. So things that are things that are different entirely different from each other.. in other words what we're saying here is just pure difference is not a fact of cause and effect. Student: "Pure difference cannot possess the kind of relationship that spark and rocks possess." Yeah. "And why not? Pure difference If cause and effect are purely different then also.. Just as the rocks and the spark are purely different, so the tennis balls and the spark are purely different Why is it then that only in some cases is there a causal relationship and not in others? If cause and effect are as purely different from each other as any random non-cause and that given effect.
Student: "Just thinking out loud here, but I think there is an appeal in these kind of common sense objects like seeds and sprouts and rocks and sparks but I'm wondering if we're almost kind of aiming our analysis at a kind of too gross or too complex or compounded level because if we were to kind of play out the scenario of the rocks and sparks in slow motion, maybe I'm a bit rusty on my four conditions, but could it be that the rocks are conditions but you know not necessarily the principal cause? Because rocks obviously have a causal property to produce heat. And then something may happen between the rocks being banged together and there being spikes there that may be the cause of the spikes that may be some phenomenon that is related to heat, which is of course we're veering back again in the direction of cause and result being the same but I think my main point is, and this has been bugging me for a couple of days, we take these common sense objects it's nice because we can perceive them. But are we already kind of working on an inherently somewhat illusory level? And do we need to take our analysis down to a more almost fundamental level almost of reality?" Yeah, that's a very good question. So if we say that there's a property for producing heat that is there, yeah then as you said, then already we have found what it is that's the same. Is the heat the property for producing..
Is the property for producing heat something altogether different from heat? We could ask ourselves. That's a very tough stance to take, that the property for something the property for producing something is entirely different from that which is produced.
So it's important to.. This sense that we are talking about very coarse and simple objects and our very what to say, unsophisticated understanding of how things happen, and that's what we are analyzing here. So, okay we know that there are much more sophisticated and subtle ways of explaining causality.
And probably to the extent that very few of us here, if any, will feel that they have a good sense of what the best account of causality is but we know that there are some very very powerful accounts in the sciences that are proven successfully to produce amazing effects, no? So there's a depth and a complexity of this issue of causality that we are somehow completely ignoring here. But then again we can try to look at whatever scientific accounts we have of cause and effect, and simply look at the the principles and the concepts that are used there. And then we can again, ask basically the same question. I don't think it matters terribly much at all whether we consider simple, common sensical examples of, for example, two rocks that that when struck together produce a spark. Or whether we talk about deep theories of physics.
Of course when we construct a theory we are free to think In any way we like, yeah? And we are certainly capable of thinking all these things. That's another very important point that I haven't brought up yet that we haven't talked about, which is
the fact that we can think about causes and conditions as.= different and the fact that we can think about them as same and so on Remains a fact regardless of whatever we can show about the real nature of causes and conditions and they're not being the same, not being different, and so on.. We can still very well go on thinking about them as different and same and probably we will. We will keep thinking about the seed and the sprout as two different things, and at the same time when the plant grows there then we will say, "That's the--" as the classical example is, "That's the plant I planted." Even if it has grown and become a big tree we will speak about it in this way as if we say that the cause and the effect is the same. So we think in these wild ways that have no problem whatsoever dealing with or using notions of sameness and difference with respect to causes and effects. That happens and has done so since time without beginning and no matter how much analysis we put into this, that doesn't mean that we can't think in this way. Of course we can, but what we are very crucially doing here is just asking the simple question. Is it really so? Is our account of things not just a practical way of speaking? Because we know from experience that certain ways of speaking allow us to be successful and other ways of speaking close the door. And certain ways of thinking makes us able to get what we want avoid what we don't want. Other ways of thinking gets us into trouble. So we're not talking about whether that's the case, whether it's nice to think about cause and effect as same and different in such and such situation. It can certainly be so. But we are asking: when we say these things, when we think in these ways that may be more or less successful, do we actually capture anything about the way things actually are? That's the key question that we are asking. We're not talking anything about the utility of concepts, of these concepts, very fundamental concepts, but we are talking..same.. Cause and effect are the same. Is that actually a truthful statement? Or cause and effect are different. Is that speaking the truth? Is that saying things as they are? And we have said sameness does not work because it disregards the way the very idea of cause and effect is is an idea of something that is.. of two things that can be compared to each other. That's why we can identify the cause and so get the result. If they were the same, we couldn't do all of this. So the very idea of causality is one that relies on different on difference of cause and effect Is it then the case that that's how really and truly causes and effects are? That they are then different? No, because just as much as the very idea of causality involves a notion of difference so is it crucial for causes and effects to be causes and effects that they are connected. And purely different entities are not connected.
So the second alternative also falls Anyone who thinks that still, as we talked about before, anyone who.. keep thinking about it at home also and otherwise if you have either a clear idea of why things could nevertheless be not just things but causes and effects could nevertheless be different from each other despite what we just said? Despite us saying that pure difference denies relationship and so difference couldn't be a description of cause and effect. Do you have a way of
of nevertheless finding a place for the idea that cause and effect are different, as being a truth a true statement?
Student: "I'm still not there in having a pure definition, but what I wanted to ask you was so, in science of science we have.. there is ways of thinking that are reductionistic and, you know, hard science-wise like we do about the stone and then there are ways of thinking that are more, you know, socially looking at the social reality. I mean, I don't know where I'm putting myself by already making these definitions, but I was just wondering It's that still applicable to constructs? I know we talked about it yesterday, but.. yeah the way I perceive reality or speech, you know which is also reality, so it's not only stones and atoms, but How would that..how does reasoning apply? I'm just trying to get an idea of.." "So, okay, let me.. so speech--let's say speech-level, like construction, so we are saying words. They are not physical like stones." Okay, right, right. "And then there is some thinking which is, I mean that's also a label but it's thought something is..I'm imagining something that is not coming out of my mouth. And that's also also real, a reality, right?" Mm-hmm. "So..my question is does that still apply? Because that is for me just as important to look at like refuting. Or is that outside of what we are investigating here? How would I refute my speech? How would I look at causality in speech? How would I look at causality in thoughts?"
You mean the concept of? "Yeah, like what if I had to.. Okay, let me say, my aim is to see if Nāgārjuna is right that nothing is arising, right? So we're looking at causality. When I say something You know and then do you say something? That's a form of causality." Yeah. "If I associate if I think about you know, an elephant and then a picture of an elephant comes up in my head that's how it feels like that's also a certain form of causality. So I'm looking at causality that it's not you know touchable. Is that? How would you apply that? I'm just a bit confused as you can hear." So you gave two examples: it's like you say something and then I say something, like right now, and so it's the same principle. Because you said something, you can you can depend on me--I mean you won't know for sure whether I'm going to say something--but you have a quite justified expectation that I'm going to say something back. If you are asking a question in this kind of situation, no? So in other words that cause your speech act is one that has effects of this kind that is happening now that somebody else expects, you know? So if you said that my speech act and yours--those two are entirely different. There's this one here and that one there and they are just purely different. Why does this connection happen? And then secondly..what was it? Student: "It was that thought-level so, um.. You know, I mean it could be I'm just saying that the non the non- real, non-physical stuff. So yeah, like I'm thinking about an elephant and then a pink elephant comes up to my mind." So whatever theory we have about how concepts work and mental appearances and so on and so forth Within the theory--whether it's a theory we have adopted or one that we have developed ourselves-- what you just said: "I think of it and then some kind of appearance occurs in my mind." It's cause and effect in the same way. If you are thinking of the elephant and the appearance of the elephant were utterly distinct entities just as different from your thinking of my hat, what to say.. if you're thinking of the elephant would be just as different from the appearance of the elephant in your mind as the appearance of my hat in your mind then Why is it that it's not like that? Why is it that when you think of elephant you get to see an elephant and not my hat? So if-- if cause and effect were purely different, when you thought of the elephant, you might just as well get to see my hat. Or to To see anything else in the whole world. There's something that connects Student: "Yeah, that was my question. So I just apply it to anything and everything on each--whatever comes up, actually, basically. Whatever it's physical or mental social or whatever?" Yeah. That's the amazing thing. We're dealing with very very wide categories, yeah? That do seem to kept to it's not that we have to then think, "Oh, but in this particular context same and different doesn't really work. Here's a kind of--at least I don't think so. Yeah, please feel free to obviously, you should try very hard to find some counter example. But amazingly wherever we look whether it's very crude thinking, whether it's very subtle, very complex, whether it's very simple--everything seems to fall into these categories of same different when we talk about causality. And that's why the implications of what we get to understand are so enormous. So now..
if that is the case that we have now refuted the first alternative and the second also we have said that the very idea of causality makes it so that we cannot say cause and effect are the same because the cause and effect clearly stand out as not just the same. And if we also say that cause and effect couldn't be simply different from each other because we do notice these causal relationships. Our whole life is structured in terms of these causal relationships. If it weren't for our perception of causal relationships, we certainly wouldn't be where we are. So since causal relationship involves commonality and indeed relation, then just as hopeless as the idea of identical cause and effect is, in the same way cause and effect being purely different is also a hopeless idea. Of course, that's not true. But when we talk about cause and effect then it seems we still have to use these concepts nonetheless, no? We have to say here's a cause and here's an effect. You see, seed is one thing effect--the sprout--is another. So we use the notion of different and then at the same time we have to say but you know the seed is the cause of the sprout so if you put it in the ground and if you give it some water and some sunshine and so on then you know, the seed will transform and and begin to to shoot a sprout and that will grow into a plant.
So in other words we say that the world is made of things that aren't just different from each other. These cause..the very idea of cause and effect implies commonality and relationship and so this world is not made of different things. As indeed very venerable and powerful masters of Buddhist philosophy would otherwise. often say that this world is made of different things. That is not true but..
So we still have to think and speak in this way using both sameness and difference. So how about the third alternative? That seems to be then where we are driven to..
So about now because we had...some of us met to discuss a little further about these matters yesterday and we considered the philosophy of the great Buddhist master Dharmakīrti who indeed is the hallmark of his philosophy to say this, that the real things are all different from each other. The world is made of of things that are different from each other. And then we yeah, talked about the critique of the second alternative that things arise from things that are different from themselves and when I left when went home I just.. to my mind came Śāntarakṣita's... Okay, this is a little digression but I think it's worth it anyway, yeah? This issue..
Because the framework developed by the Buddhist logicians has been so incredibly successful and influential it is something that as a Buddhist one is sort of hard-pressed to say, "Well really in the end it doesn't make sense." So we were talking about that yesterday: Do we really have to say that or not? If we are Buddhists, or think of ourselves as Buddhists would like to be Buddhists then it's easy to dismiss Sāṃkhya perhaps and say, "Yeah, the Sāṃkhya's are wrong. The Buddhist will have it right." But when it comes to the Buddhist point of view and then we see that the the Buddhist point of view seems to be fundamentally wrong. Then what do we do? So that's what we were talking about. Then some philosophers in of Mādhyamaka, they make a big effort to incorporate the Dharmakīrti approach to logic and epistemology and others say that that is completely useless like yeah, why would you even try?
But then what I thought of when walking home is how the master who is sort of the classic example of someone who really embodied and incorporates the logic and epistemology of Dharmakīrti into a Mādhyamaka context, namely Śāntarakṣita. He himself says about this that it is compelling only as long as you don't investigate This is quite amazing, no? Like he makes an enormous.. He lays claim to being yeah, I want to say in India probably one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers at all. Some I've heard say that Śāntarakṣita is more influential than Nāgārjuna, and yet.. So he certainly does this, he incorporates Candrakīrtian thinking into a Mādhyamaka context. But at the same time he says very clearly that this marvelous system is compelling only as long as you don't investigate. It's quite amazing. So now about the both alternative. So what about that? The trouble with both is that it is
The trouble with both is that it is a combination of two things that we have found to be
not just partially successful, but 100% unsuccessful in terms of accounting for the relationship between cause and effect. If it were that there was something quite right about sameness and something quite right about difference, then we could we could make a combination out of it and say, "yeah. Just get the good part from sameness and the good part from difference and then you mix it together and you have the true story. But we have found that the idea of sameness simply has nothing to do with the idea of cause and effect and we have found that the idea of pure difference simply has nothing to do with cause and effect. So how could we expect that bringing two completely failed attempts at explaining cause and effect to be the solution to our problem? Please try and think about that. Yeah before we go one question.
Student: "I mean for that I think that they don't work exclusively, right? Like sameness alone doesn't work and difference alone doesn't work. But together it's different like the whole is different than the parts separate. So like just as if we had different parts of a computer it doesn't make a computer. And alone they don't work. And we couldn't say that that is a computer. But when we put them all together we get something that's different from what we had at the beginning in a way and at the same time
What we're saying right, it arises in a way that's a combination of two, like the different parts together can make up something that will work, that separate wouldn't. But I don't think that because alone they didn't work they can't work together. I don't think that rules it out." So we have to talk about it in this way, as you say, you know, that we get something that is different. There's a computer that is up and running is something very different from the parts when they lay there in front of us. But it's the same parts. So in other words, we have to talk about sameness just as we have to talk about difference. But where do we get the license to talk about either one of them from? We're forced to it. We can't make sense of anything without thinking in these words and yet when we look closer at what we're saying we find nothing. So on that note, let's let's stop here. Try to think really well about this at home and when you..
when you come to some interesting point, then try to just pause and acknowledge where you're at. I think that that is a way that we can sort of try to connect with the resting approach. Whenever you feel that you have seen something or wherever you feel that something has become completely incomprehensible-- whenever you feel that you have... your big question mark or whenever you think "aha!" Try to not just ignore that event but try to to sort of go with it a little bit and it can give some special energy to the whole enterprise. Thank you very much.
Good morning. Shall
we begin With the verses?
"That which originates dependently
does not cease and does
not arise, is not annihilated
and is not permanent,
Does not come and does not go,
Is not different and
not the same. To the true
teacher who reveals
this peace, the complete
pacification of constructs, to the perfect Buddha
I bow down."
And then we go back to
the opening verse of the
first chapter: The
Analysis of Conditions
And in that context we have looked at now two alternatives that are open As accounts of how in general terms things happen either causally dependent on other things or independent of anything that has a causal power--so randomly or uncaused. And we said that If we are to save the notion of real arising or defend that successfully against the thesis the claim that is made there in the opening verse then we will have to find a way of explaining arising within the framework of these four alternatives it has to be an account of arising that is causal arising or it has to be an account of arising that is uncaused and when we look at causes and conditions that produce the emergence of things then those causes and conditions..our successful account of how things really happen will have to be one that either claims that cause and effect are identical, It will have to be otherwise that cause and effect different from each other, cause and effect are both identical same and different. Yeah, so that's when we go with the causal explanation. If we cannot find a way to account for causal arising within these three Alternatives as one of these three alternatives then we have failed to account for it.
Is there anyone who can explain why that is so? Why unless we can explain arising based on causes and conditions in terms of these three options then we have failed to account for arising, why is that? I still don't have the names. Anyone would like to offer an explanation this should be very clear
Because otherwise it's blurry here what?
If it's not clear it's blurry here, that's logic.
Student: "Because the first two are kind of like opposites logical opposites, so they together cover the entire known universe so to speak if it's not this and not that then, yeah, everything is covered thereby. So I have a suspicion that even the third option will already seem to be a bit problematic even though it seems where we're heading in that direction as, um.. Yeah, maybe a cop out or something, but it's the third option is also a combination of these two so if the first two cannot be Yeah upheld and the third may also be problematic even though yeah, I think we're for now going in that direction." Yeah. Student: "I've been thinking about how to test for another option because you know we've been talking about how important it is to make sure there isn't another option. I just can't even think how to think about something. that's not caused and uncaused. You know I have a few ideas I sort of have ideas for those two, but not for the other one." So that's another way of doing it like we can think of some logical laws, laws of logic maybe, that is helpful depends who we are know How much we know about the laws of logic and how much trust we have in laws of logic. They also can take many forms, the laws of logic. And then as we do that as we try to understand with the help of whatever we know about logic in general, we also just ask ourselves very deeply why? Why is it like that? And then one reason is then I just can't think. I've tried really hard And it's just impossible for me to think of anything that wouldn't be either one of any one of these three options. But it's it's..we don't have to necessarily study logic to to progress with this, but it's necessary that we think it through individually. What is our our own
understanding? Like why wouldn't it be the case that there could be something that is neither? A causal rising which is not arising from itself not arising from another. It's not a combination either. It's neither of those. It seems like to a natural option.
Student: "And just going by what we have been discussing the last the last week it's it's not an option because it's then we are outside of the question because incorporated in the word arising Is either arising on another rising like the word in itself doesn't incorporate any other things, so if that's the question If I had to figure out something that was outside of it it wouldn't be answering the question."
"What if it was some kind of chaotic thing? It is still arising.." So chaos, I think that is the fourth option that is mentioned here--uncaused arising, when it's completely pure chaos. Things suddenly happen, but they are completely unpredictable.
So chaos is accounted for, not in the causal models, but under uncaused. So when you hear this type of account and this type of response, do you each feel that "Yeah, that's also where I'm coming from." Or what's your sort of..?
What is your response intellectually? Emotionally what have you? Do you feel that..
How ready are you to take the next step so to speak? The next step..
If yeah.. because as we have said no if we have with every step investigated really carefully and pressed hard to find a way to see if something lacking or something being mis- mistated and we just can't to the best of our capacity come up with any objection, then of course we can say, "But I still don't know," fine. But usually in life things don't work like that if that's something you you have tried really hard to object to but you spent a lot of time to the best of your capacity to to reject and object, and you found no way of doing it then you kind of have to go along on that basis. If you want to get anywhere. But there's no.. it is a choice. We can also still say, "But I still don't know," and nobody can force us to know It's something that comes from inside. Do I know or not? It's a very interesting point which will always be there. We can always opt out. At any point in this we can always say, "But in the end, I don't know." And then, yeah...
It's an interesting fact in itself. Student: "I think I'm still quite convinced by both. So I probably have to work past that." Yeah, yeah. No, that's all good. Yeah, but at least that that these three really are.. If we want to defend causal arising we have to find a way of doing it within sameness, difference, or both same and different.
Yeah, and I think the the basic laws of logic are not, classical logic are not that..
They have a lot of intuitive appeal too, no? If it isn't same then what? The denial of sameness is the affirmation of difference, no? Why is it that we can't say yes to same? It's because of difference So it takes us very naturally right into the second alternative, to deny the first, no? So where would that.. Then we can still keep The combination open, but where would any other option be possible? We start by saying, is it a reasonable question to ask: are causes and effects the same? And we say, "Yeah, that's an okay reason to ask. It's also a question that we should be able to answer. And we answered that question quite clearly because we said, "Well whatever we may want to say about the ultimate nature of things-- the way causes and effects come across--the way the only way I can think of them is one that is in terms of them being not the same. Otherwise if they were the same, how could I talk about cause and effect? Yeah, I couldn't right? So..if we then say, "Okay fine the first option is not an actual option. It would be a mistake to say that cause and effects are the same." Then by virtue of having done that we have said not same and what is not same means different, right? That's what we mean by 'different.' Is there any other understanding of difference than not same? Try also to think about that. Can we use the notion of 'different' in a way that doesn't mean 'not the same'?
It seems very difficult to construe different anything but in terms of a denial of sameness, no?
But then we could quite comfortably deny, defer or refute an account of cause and effect that says cause and effect are the same It still seems to leave a lot of options open for us. We even could accommodate the view that cause and effects are the same just by putting them a bit further down in this diagram so that they.. So that cause and effect being the same is not really cause and effect being 100% the same but a theory of illusion of some sort that the appearance of cause and effect as different is an illusion, but actually they are not. What we what we said though, is that this is not pure monism. It is a theory of illusion and illusion has to take into account how the illusion comes across. Otherwise, it's a useless theory So that that's all what we did when we refuted the first alternative. It seems to leave a lot of ground for us to build a new kind of explanation on. So we went on to the refutation of arising from other things arising from other things And then it was...we said, "Okay fine, if causes and effects are by nature different from each other, if that's just something that really characterizes effects and causes, then why is it that we want to bind them together?" Cause and effect has to be something that fits, no? So, why would it be a relevant description to say that cause and effect are different?
So is there anyone who who can come up with an explanation of how it is still right and justified to say that cause and effect should be understood as different from each other? Please think about it. And if we can't then we should also know that thereby we have refuted a very fundamental part of Buddhist philosophy.
Student: "I just had one example for this like.. So if you bang together two rocks and a spark comes out, that spark is different from the rocks." If you bang together sorry? "Two rocks." Yeah. "And then spark comes out, which lights a fire that is different from the rocks. Even though I see this is not agreed within the commentary." Yeah, but so two rocks hitting against each other and producing a spark so like we have the two rocks that hit each other in this way and then we have the.. if those are the cause and then the effect is the spark. But the two rocks are nevertheless what it takes to create that kind of spark. In other words, It doesn't work if I take two tennis balls and do the same. I'm not going to get any spark. So..because we say that this can cause that like you can tell me Thomas if you go and pick up those two stones and hit them together. You'll see you get a spark. In that way you're telling me something about a causal relationship. And relationship is not a story of difference.
There are things.. relationship ties together
So cause and effect appear different. That's what we already considered in the first alternative. We refuted the first alternative on the basis of the seeming appearance. But then the appearance of causal relationships on the other hand goes to refute difference.
Yeah. Student: "Hello, can hear me?" Yeah.
Can you speak?
Student: "Yes. I would like to say that I agree with.. with all these three options, these three categories: not from itself, not from another, not from both, and not uncaused. Nowhere does anything ever arise. And also there are four conditions: causal, objective, immediately preceding... There is no fifth condition and the next one as well. The second one is the one that I feel most comfortable with. The first one is the one that I...I agree with it, but I cannot really say that I understand it fully because it's like it's so deep that it's It's hard to really.. Yeah, make sense of it. And then I would like to comment on this seed relationship with this sprout--that my understanding of this is that the link there is information."
Information is passed, yeah? "Yeah, like same as in like humans and other growing animals and stuff information embedded and.." Right. "Maybe you add something that makes it grow but.." Right. So if information is passed from one to the other, which it would have to be in one way or the other, then who knows how? That's a very deep and important question, but if information can be passed and that's how a seed can grow into a.. can be passed on..then that's how a seed can go on and become as a sprout, then they clearly aren't the same, no? Because information goes from one to another. That they clearly aren't different-- it's not the right description of them to say that they are by nature different from each other. If they were by nature different then what could connect them? How could information contained in the seed become information contained in the sprout? That refutes clearly the notion of different causes and different effects. Student: "But why does it have to be different?" So then if they're not different we go back to number one. Then they're the same. "Yeah." And the same didn't work either Quite soon we'll have to consider the third option that combines the two. Student: "Yeah, I didn't really like try to put any of these options into the seed-sprout I just thought about the information thing. But I can't see any problem seeing that causal-objective and immediately-preceding should be like..."
The four conditions we'll look at hopefully quite soon. Yeah, but let's wait until we get there. Then we can try to understand what the four are and whether they are a good way of explaining arising. And then typically those four are meant as components in a framework that sees cause and effect as different. This is the Buddhist Abhidharmic account of causality, that there are four conditions that produce the effects and those conditions are different from their.. the effects that they produce. Okay, yep.
Student: "I have a question more so.. Your argument for or against difference seems to boil down to the to the statement that relation implies sameness or is somehow equivalent to sameness, like if two things are in relation they must be the same." At least not different, yeah? "Yeah, so I just..and if not different yeah, if not different is sameness, which is what you were saying a moment ago.." It's hard to think of not different in any other way but not right away we can make a difference conceptually it can seem to us that there's a there's a difference between just saying not not different and then saying they are the same. But when push comes to shove it's hard to think of not different in any other way than same, right? Student: "Right, and so if relation implies not different It does seem like. In addition to you know, the rocks and the spark being in relation to one another, seemingly causally, you know me and a tennis ball are also in relation somehow. Like, you know, all the relations can be established between things that we almost always say are different. And so I just feel like I would want a stronger account of why relation implies sameness in this way. Like there is a relation in some sense between tennis balls and spark. It's not one that we typically consider to be a causal relation, but in the sense of taking up space in the same vicinity perhaps you could imagine tennis balls and spark being in relation to one another." We are considering cause and effect here. We're talking about if things happen, if they are if they occur, either they are produced by causes and conditions or they aren't. And now what we are looking at is how do things.. how could things possibly arise if they are causally dependent? And then we're saying about those three options we can say that either cause and effect identical, that's a fair question to ask. Similarly we could ask the opposite question are cause and effect different from each other?
And if we fail to find a basis for defending either of those two accounts then we could say they are both. So we're not we are not..so we're talking about events where we do have a sense of cause and effect. So if first we have two rocks that produce a spark and then two tennis balls that don't, then the first..and if we say this is the kind of causal relationship that we're after--hitting two things and producing a sprout-- then the two rocks would be an example of cause and the two tennis ball would be an example of non-cause. Student: "Yes of the spark.." Yes. Just of the spark. They have many other things that they can do and be causes of. Student: "But the question is are the rocks the cause? It's like are the rocks different from the spark? That's the question at hand. And so the question at hand is about sameness or difference. My understanding of your argument for why they couldn't be different is that there's some kind of relation between rocks and spark that isn't there between tennis balls and spark." Yeah. "And so unless you're simply saying relation, as such, implies sameness--which I don't think you could say right? Because there's some relation that could be drawn between tennis balls and spark but what is the account that's being made of the specific kind of relation such that there could not be a difference given that that relation holds? Do you see what I am saying?" Yeah, I think so. In this case, I think it's useful to say just 'not different.' If the two.. if cause and effect... ..if the very idea of cause and effect does involve the notion of relationship then difference cannot be a proper description of those two. There is something that brings them together. Like the example of information for example, if information is passed whatever scientific account of the arising of the spark we would come up with, is also one that connects the two. So things that are things that are different entirely different from each other.. in other words what we're saying here is just pure difference is not a fact of cause and effect. Student: "Pure difference cannot possess the kind of relationship that spark and rocks possess." Yeah. "And why not? Pure difference If cause and effect are purely different then also.. Just as the rocks and the spark are purely different, so the tennis balls and the spark are purely different Why is it then that only in some cases is there a causal relationship and not in others? If cause and effect are as purely different from each other as any random non-cause and that given effect.
Student: "Just thinking out loud here, but I think there is an appeal in these kind of common sense objects like seeds and sprouts and rocks and sparks but I'm wondering if we're almost kind of aiming our analysis at a kind of too gross or too complex or compounded level because if we were to kind of play out the scenario of the rocks and sparks in slow motion, maybe I'm a bit rusty on my four conditions, but could it be that the rocks are conditions but you know not necessarily the principal cause? Because rocks obviously have a causal property to produce heat. And then something may happen between the rocks being banged together and there being spikes there that may be the cause of the spikes that may be some phenomenon that is related to heat, which is of course we're veering back again in the direction of cause and result being the same but I think my main point is, and this has been bugging me for a couple of days, we take these common sense objects it's nice because we can perceive them. But are we already kind of working on an inherently somewhat illusory level? And do we need to take our analysis down to a more almost fundamental level almost of reality?" Yeah, that's a very good question. So if we say that there's a property for producing heat that is there, yeah then as you said, then already we have found what it is that's the same. Is the heat the property for producing..
Is the property for producing heat something altogether different from heat? We could ask ourselves. That's a very tough stance to take, that the property for something the property for producing something is entirely different from that which is produced.
So it's important to.. This sense that we are talking about very coarse and simple objects and our very what to say, unsophisticated understanding of how things happen, and that's what we are analyzing here. So, okay we know that there are much more sophisticated and subtle ways of explaining causality.
And probably to the extent that very few of us here, if any, will feel that they have a good sense of what the best account of causality is but we know that there are some very very powerful accounts in the sciences that are proven successfully to produce amazing effects, no? So there's a depth and a complexity of this issue of causality that we are somehow completely ignoring here. But then again we can try to look at whatever scientific accounts we have of cause and effect, and simply look at the the principles and the concepts that are used there. And then we can again, ask basically the same question. I don't think it matters terribly much at all whether we consider simple, common sensical examples of, for example, two rocks that that when struck together produce a spark. Or whether we talk about deep theories of physics.
Of course when we construct a theory we are free to think In any way we like, yeah? And we are certainly capable of thinking all these things. That's another very important point that I haven't brought up yet that we haven't talked about, which is
the fact that we can think about causes and conditions as.= different and the fact that we can think about them as same and so on Remains a fact regardless of whatever we can show about the real nature of causes and conditions and they're not being the same, not being different, and so on.. We can still very well go on thinking about them as different and same and probably we will. We will keep thinking about the seed and the sprout as two different things, and at the same time when the plant grows there then we will say, "That's the--" as the classical example is, "That's the plant I planted." Even if it has grown and become a big tree we will speak about it in this way as if we say that the cause and the effect is the same. So we think in these wild ways that have no problem whatsoever dealing with or using notions of sameness and difference with respect to causes and effects. That happens and has done so since time without beginning and no matter how much analysis we put into this, that doesn't mean that we can't think in this way. Of course we can, but what we are very crucially doing here is just asking the simple question. Is it really so? Is our account of things not just a practical way of speaking? Because we know from experience that certain ways of speaking allow us to be successful and other ways of speaking close the door. And certain ways of thinking makes us able to get what we want avoid what we don't want. Other ways of thinking gets us into trouble. So we're not talking about whether that's the case, whether it's nice to think about cause and effect as same and different in such and such situation. It can certainly be so. But we are asking: when we say these things, when we think in these ways that may be more or less successful, do we actually capture anything about the way things actually are? That's the key question that we are asking. We're not talking anything about the utility of concepts, of these concepts, very fundamental concepts, but we are talking..same.. Cause and effect are the same. Is that actually a truthful statement? Or cause and effect are different. Is that speaking the truth? Is that saying things as they are? And we have said sameness does not work because it disregards the way the very idea of cause and effect is is an idea of something that is.. of two things that can be compared to each other. That's why we can identify the cause and so get the result. If they were the same, we couldn't do all of this. So the very idea of causality is one that relies on different on difference of cause and effect Is it then the case that that's how really and truly causes and effects are? That they are then different? No, because just as much as the very idea of causality involves a notion of difference so is it crucial for causes and effects to be causes and effects that they are connected. And purely different entities are not connected.
So the second alternative also falls Anyone who thinks that still, as we talked about before, anyone who.. keep thinking about it at home also and otherwise if you have either a clear idea of why things could nevertheless be not just things but causes and effects could nevertheless be different from each other despite what we just said? Despite us saying that pure difference denies relationship and so difference couldn't be a description of cause and effect. Do you have a way of
of nevertheless finding a place for the idea that cause and effect are different, as being a truth a true statement?
Student: "I'm still not there in having a pure definition, but what I wanted to ask you was so, in science of science we have.. there is ways of thinking that are reductionistic and, you know, hard science-wise like we do about the stone and then there are ways of thinking that are more, you know, socially looking at the social reality. I mean, I don't know where I'm putting myself by already making these definitions, but I was just wondering It's that still applicable to constructs? I know we talked about it yesterday, but.. yeah the way I perceive reality or speech, you know which is also reality, so it's not only stones and atoms, but How would that..how does reasoning apply? I'm just trying to get an idea of.." "So, okay, let me.. so speech--let's say speech-level, like construction, so we are saying words. They are not physical like stones." Okay, right, right. "And then there is some thinking which is, I mean that's also a label but it's thought something is..I'm imagining something that is not coming out of my mouth. And that's also also real, a reality, right?" Mm-hmm. "So..my question is does that still apply? Because that is for me just as important to look at like refuting. Or is that outside of what we are investigating here? How would I refute my speech? How would I look at causality in speech? How would I look at causality in thoughts?"
You mean the concept of? "Yeah, like what if I had to.. Okay, let me say, my aim is to see if Nāgārjuna is right that nothing is arising, right? So we're looking at causality. When I say something You know and then do you say something? That's a form of causality." Yeah. "If I associate if I think about you know, an elephant and then a picture of an elephant comes up in my head that's how it feels like that's also a certain form of causality. So I'm looking at causality that it's not you know touchable. Is that? How would you apply that? I'm just a bit confused as you can hear." So you gave two examples: it's like you say something and then I say something, like right now, and so it's the same principle. Because you said something, you can you can depend on me--I mean you won't know for sure whether I'm going to say something--but you have a quite justified expectation that I'm going to say something back. If you are asking a question in this kind of situation, no? So in other words that cause your speech act is one that has effects of this kind that is happening now that somebody else expects, you know? So if you said that my speech act and yours--those two are entirely different. There's this one here and that one there and they are just purely different. Why does this connection happen? And then secondly..what was it? Student: "It was that thought-level so, um.. You know, I mean it could be I'm just saying that the non the non- real, non-physical stuff. So yeah, like I'm thinking about an elephant and then a pink elephant comes up to my mind." So whatever theory we have about how concepts work and mental appearances and so on and so forth Within the theory--whether it's a theory we have adopted or one that we have developed ourselves-- what you just said: "I think of it and then some kind of appearance occurs in my mind." It's cause and effect in the same way. If you are thinking of the elephant and the appearance of the elephant were utterly distinct entities just as different from your thinking of my hat, what to say.. if you're thinking of the elephant would be just as different from the appearance of the elephant in your mind as the appearance of my hat in your mind then Why is it that it's not like that? Why is it that when you think of elephant you get to see an elephant and not my hat? So if-- if cause and effect were purely different, when you thought of the elephant, you might just as well get to see my hat. Or to To see anything else in the whole world. There's something that connects Student: "Yeah, that was my question. So I just apply it to anything and everything on each--whatever comes up, actually, basically. Whatever it's physical or mental social or whatever?" Yeah. That's the amazing thing. We're dealing with very very wide categories, yeah? That do seem to kept to it's not that we have to then think, "Oh, but in this particular context same and different doesn't really work. Here's a kind of--at least I don't think so. Yeah, please feel free to obviously, you should try very hard to find some counter example. But amazingly wherever we look whether it's very crude thinking, whether it's very subtle, very complex, whether it's very simple--everything seems to fall into these categories of same different when we talk about causality. And that's why the implications of what we get to understand are so enormous. So now..
if that is the case that we have now refuted the first alternative and the second also we have said that the very idea of causality makes it so that we cannot say cause and effect are the same because the cause and effect clearly stand out as not just the same. And if we also say that cause and effect couldn't be simply different from each other because we do notice these causal relationships. Our whole life is structured in terms of these causal relationships. If it weren't for our perception of causal relationships, we certainly wouldn't be where we are. So since causal relationship involves commonality and indeed relation, then just as hopeless as the idea of identical cause and effect is, in the same way cause and effect being purely different is also a hopeless idea. Of course, that's not true. But when we talk about cause and effect then it seems we still have to use these concepts nonetheless, no? We have to say here's a cause and here's an effect. You see, seed is one thing effect--the sprout--is another. So we use the notion of different and then at the same time we have to say but you know the seed is the cause of the sprout so if you put it in the ground and if you give it some water and some sunshine and so on then you know, the seed will transform and and begin to to shoot a sprout and that will grow into a plant.
So in other words we say that the world is made of things that aren't just different from each other. These cause..the very idea of cause and effect implies commonality and relationship and so this world is not made of different things. As indeed very venerable and powerful masters of Buddhist philosophy would otherwise. often say that this world is made of different things. That is not true but..
So we still have to think and speak in this way using both sameness and difference. So how about the third alternative? That seems to be then where we are driven to..
So about now because we had...some of us met to discuss a little further about these matters yesterday and we considered the philosophy of the great Buddhist master Dharmakīrti who indeed is the hallmark of his philosophy to say this, that the real things are all different from each other. The world is made of of things that are different from each other. And then we yeah, talked about the critique of the second alternative that things arise from things that are different from themselves and when I left when went home I just.. to my mind came Śāntarakṣita's... Okay, this is a little digression but I think it's worth it anyway, yeah? This issue..
Because the framework developed by the Buddhist logicians has been so incredibly successful and influential it is something that as a Buddhist one is sort of hard-pressed to say, "Well really in the end it doesn't make sense." So we were talking about that yesterday: Do we really have to say that or not? If we are Buddhists, or think of ourselves as Buddhists would like to be Buddhists then it's easy to dismiss Sāṃkhya perhaps and say, "Yeah, the Sāṃkhya's are wrong. The Buddhist will have it right." But when it comes to the Buddhist point of view and then we see that the the Buddhist point of view seems to be fundamentally wrong. Then what do we do? So that's what we were talking about. Then some philosophers in of Mādhyamaka, they make a big effort to incorporate the Dharmakīrti approach to logic and epistemology and others say that that is completely useless like yeah, why would you even try?
But then what I thought of when walking home is how the master who is sort of the classic example of someone who really embodied and incorporates the logic and epistemology of Dharmakīrti into a Mādhyamaka context, namely Śāntarakṣita. He himself says about this that it is compelling only as long as you don't investigate This is quite amazing, no? Like he makes an enormous.. He lays claim to being yeah, I want to say in India probably one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers at all. Some I've heard say that Śāntarakṣita is more influential than Nāgārjuna, and yet.. So he certainly does this, he incorporates Candrakīrtian thinking into a Mādhyamaka context. But at the same time he says very clearly that this marvelous system is compelling only as long as you don't investigate. It's quite amazing. So now about the both alternative. So what about that? The trouble with both is that it is
The trouble with both is that it is a combination of two things that we have found to be
not just partially successful, but 100% unsuccessful in terms of accounting for the relationship between cause and effect. If it were that there was something quite right about sameness and something quite right about difference, then we could we could make a combination out of it and say, "yeah. Just get the good part from sameness and the good part from difference and then you mix it together and you have the true story. But we have found that the idea of sameness simply has nothing to do with the idea of cause and effect and we have found that the idea of pure difference simply has nothing to do with cause and effect. So how could we expect that bringing two completely failed attempts at explaining cause and effect to be the solution to our problem? Please try and think about that. Yeah before we go one question.
Student: "I mean for that I think that they don't work exclusively, right? Like sameness alone doesn't work and difference alone doesn't work. But together it's different like the whole is different than the parts separate. So like just as if we had different parts of a computer it doesn't make a computer. And alone they don't work. And we couldn't say that that is a computer. But when we put them all together we get something that's different from what we had at the beginning in a way and at the same time
What we're saying right, it arises in a way that's a combination of two, like the different parts together can make up something that will work, that separate wouldn't. But I don't think that because alone they didn't work they can't work together. I don't think that rules it out." So we have to talk about it in this way, as you say, you know, that we get something that is different. There's a computer that is up and running is something very different from the parts when they lay there in front of us. But it's the same parts. So in other words, we have to talk about sameness just as we have to talk about difference. But where do we get the license to talk about either one of them from? We're forced to it. We can't make sense of anything without thinking in these words and yet when we look closer at what we're saying we find nothing. So on that note, let's let's stop here. Try to think really well about this at home and when you..
when you come to some interesting point, then try to just pause and acknowledge where you're at. I think that that is a way that we can sort of try to connect with the resting approach. Whenever you feel that you have seen something or wherever you feel that something has become completely incomprehensible-- whenever you feel that you have... your big question mark or whenever you think "aha!" Try to not just ignore that event but try to to sort of go with it a little bit and it can give some special energy to the whole enterprise. Thank you very much.
And in that context we have looked at now two alternatives that are open As accounts of how in general terms things happen either causally dependent on other things or independent of anything that has a causal power--so randomly or uncaused. And we said that If we are to save the notion of real arising or defend that successfully against the thesis the claim that is made there in the opening verse then we will have to find a way of explaining arising within the framework of these four alternatives it has to be an account of arising that is causal arising or it has to be an account of arising that is uncaused and when we look at causes and conditions that produce the emergence of things then those causes and conditions..our successful account of how things really happen will have to be one that either claims that cause and effect are identical, It will have to be otherwise that cause and effect different from each other, cause and effect are both identical same and different. Yeah, so that's when we go with the causal explanation. If we cannot find a way to account for causal arising within these three Alternatives as one of these three alternatives then we have failed to account for it.
Is there anyone who can explain why that is so? Why unless we can explain arising based on causes and conditions in terms of these three options then we have failed to account for arising, why is that? I still don't have the names. Anyone would like to offer an explanation this should be very clear
Because otherwise it's blurry here what?
If it's not clear it's blurry here, that's logic.
Student: "Because the first two are kind of like opposites logical opposites, so they together cover the entire known universe so to speak if it's not this and not that then, yeah, everything is covered thereby. So I have a suspicion that even the third option will already seem to be a bit problematic even though it seems where we're heading in that direction as, um.. Yeah, maybe a cop out or something, but it's the third option is also a combination of these two so if the first two cannot be Yeah upheld and the third may also be problematic even though yeah, I think we're for now going in that direction." Yeah. Student: "I've been thinking about how to test for another option because you know we've been talking about how important it is to make sure there isn't another option. I just can't even think how to think about something. that's not caused and uncaused. You know I have a few ideas I sort of have ideas for those two, but not for the other one." So that's another way of doing it like we can think of some logical laws, laws of logic maybe, that is helpful depends who we are know How much we know about the laws of logic and how much trust we have in laws of logic. They also can take many forms, the laws of logic. And then as we do that as we try to understand with the help of whatever we know about logic in general, we also just ask ourselves very deeply why? Why is it like that? And then one reason is then I just can't think. I've tried really hard And it's just impossible for me to think of anything that wouldn't be either one of any one of these three options. But it's it's..we don't have to necessarily study logic to to progress with this, but it's necessary that we think it through individually. What is our our own
understanding? Like why wouldn't it be the case that there could be something that is neither? A causal rising which is not arising from itself not arising from another. It's not a combination either. It's neither of those. It seems like to a natural option.
Student: "And just going by what we have been discussing the last the last week it's it's not an option because it's then we are outside of the question because incorporated in the word arising Is either arising on another rising like the word in itself doesn't incorporate any other things, so if that's the question If I had to figure out something that was outside of it it wouldn't be answering the question."
"What if it was some kind of chaotic thing? It is still arising.." So chaos, I think that is the fourth option that is mentioned here--uncaused arising, when it's completely pure chaos. Things suddenly happen, but they are completely unpredictable.
So chaos is accounted for, not in the causal models, but under uncaused. So when you hear this type of account and this type of response, do you each feel that "Yeah, that's also where I'm coming from." Or what's your sort of..?
What is your response intellectually? Emotionally what have you? Do you feel that..
How ready are you to take the next step so to speak? The next step..
If yeah.. because as we have said no if we have with every step investigated really carefully and pressed hard to find a way to see if something lacking or something being mis- mistated and we just can't to the best of our capacity come up with any objection, then of course we can say, "But I still don't know," fine. But usually in life things don't work like that if that's something you you have tried really hard to object to but you spent a lot of time to the best of your capacity to to reject and object, and you found no way of doing it then you kind of have to go along on that basis. If you want to get anywhere. But there's no.. it is a choice. We can also still say, "But I still don't know," and nobody can force us to know It's something that comes from inside. Do I know or not? It's a very interesting point which will always be there. We can always opt out. At any point in this we can always say, "But in the end, I don't know." And then, yeah...
It's an interesting fact in itself. Student: "I think I'm still quite convinced by both. So I probably have to work past that." Yeah, yeah. No, that's all good. Yeah, but at least that that these three really are.. If we want to defend causal arising we have to find a way of doing it within sameness, difference, or both same and different.
Yeah, and I think the the basic laws of logic are not, classical logic are not that..
They have a lot of intuitive appeal too, no? If it isn't same then what? The denial of sameness is the affirmation of difference, no? Why is it that we can't say yes to same? It's because of difference So it takes us very naturally right into the second alternative, to deny the first, no? So where would that.. Then we can still keep The combination open, but where would any other option be possible? We start by saying, is it a reasonable question to ask: are causes and effects the same? And we say, "Yeah, that's an okay reason to ask. It's also a question that we should be able to answer. And we answered that question quite clearly because we said, "Well whatever we may want to say about the ultimate nature of things-- the way causes and effects come across--the way the only way I can think of them is one that is in terms of them being not the same. Otherwise if they were the same, how could I talk about cause and effect? Yeah, I couldn't right? So..if we then say, "Okay fine the first option is not an actual option. It would be a mistake to say that cause and effects are the same." Then by virtue of having done that we have said not same and what is not same means different, right? That's what we mean by 'different.' Is there any other understanding of difference than not same? Try also to think about that. Can we use the notion of 'different' in a way that doesn't mean 'not the same'?
It seems very difficult to construe different anything but in terms of a denial of sameness, no?
But then we could quite comfortably deny, defer or refute an account of cause and effect that says cause and effect are the same It still seems to leave a lot of options open for us. We even could accommodate the view that cause and effects are the same just by putting them a bit further down in this diagram so that they.. So that cause and effect being the same is not really cause and effect being 100% the same but a theory of illusion of some sort that the appearance of cause and effect as different is an illusion, but actually they are not. What we what we said though, is that this is not pure monism. It is a theory of illusion and illusion has to take into account how the illusion comes across. Otherwise, it's a useless theory So that that's all what we did when we refuted the first alternative. It seems to leave a lot of ground for us to build a new kind of explanation on. So we went on to the refutation of arising from other things arising from other things And then it was...we said, "Okay fine, if causes and effects are by nature different from each other, if that's just something that really characterizes effects and causes, then why is it that we want to bind them together?" Cause and effect has to be something that fits, no? So, why would it be a relevant description to say that cause and effect are different?
So is there anyone who who can come up with an explanation of how it is still right and justified to say that cause and effect should be understood as different from each other? Please think about it. And if we can't then we should also know that thereby we have refuted a very fundamental part of Buddhist philosophy.
Student: "I just had one example for this like.. So if you bang together two rocks and a spark comes out, that spark is different from the rocks." If you bang together sorry? "Two rocks." Yeah. "And then spark comes out, which lights a fire that is different from the rocks. Even though I see this is not agreed within the commentary." Yeah, but so two rocks hitting against each other and producing a spark so like we have the two rocks that hit each other in this way and then we have the.. if those are the cause and then the effect is the spark. But the two rocks are nevertheless what it takes to create that kind of spark. In other words, It doesn't work if I take two tennis balls and do the same. I'm not going to get any spark. So..because we say that this can cause that like you can tell me Thomas if you go and pick up those two stones and hit them together. You'll see you get a spark. In that way you're telling me something about a causal relationship. And relationship is not a story of difference.
There are things.. relationship ties together
So cause and effect appear different. That's what we already considered in the first alternative. We refuted the first alternative on the basis of the seeming appearance. But then the appearance of causal relationships on the other hand goes to refute difference.
Yeah. Student: "Hello, can hear me?" Yeah.
Can you speak?
Student: "Yes. I would like to say that I agree with.. with all these three options, these three categories: not from itself, not from another, not from both, and not uncaused. Nowhere does anything ever arise. And also there are four conditions: causal, objective, immediately preceding... There is no fifth condition and the next one as well. The second one is the one that I feel most comfortable with. The first one is the one that I...I agree with it, but I cannot really say that I understand it fully because it's like it's so deep that it's It's hard to really.. Yeah, make sense of it. And then I would like to comment on this seed relationship with this sprout--that my understanding of this is that the link there is information."
Information is passed, yeah? "Yeah, like same as in like humans and other growing animals and stuff information embedded and.." Right. "Maybe you add something that makes it grow but.." Right. So if information is passed from one to the other, which it would have to be in one way or the other, then who knows how? That's a very deep and important question, but if information can be passed and that's how a seed can grow into a.. can be passed on..then that's how a seed can go on and become as a sprout, then they clearly aren't the same, no? Because information goes from one to another. That they clearly aren't different-- it's not the right description of them to say that they are by nature different from each other. If they were by nature different then what could connect them? How could information contained in the seed become information contained in the sprout? That refutes clearly the notion of different causes and different effects. Student: "But why does it have to be different?" So then if they're not different we go back to number one. Then they're the same. "Yeah." And the same didn't work either Quite soon we'll have to consider the third option that combines the two. Student: "Yeah, I didn't really like try to put any of these options into the seed-sprout I just thought about the information thing. But I can't see any problem seeing that causal-objective and immediately-preceding should be like..."
The four conditions we'll look at hopefully quite soon. Yeah, but let's wait until we get there. Then we can try to understand what the four are and whether they are a good way of explaining arising. And then typically those four are meant as components in a framework that sees cause and effect as different. This is the Buddhist Abhidharmic account of causality, that there are four conditions that produce the effects and those conditions are different from their.. the effects that they produce. Okay, yep.
Student: "I have a question more so.. Your argument for or against difference seems to boil down to the to the statement that relation implies sameness or is somehow equivalent to sameness, like if two things are in relation they must be the same." At least not different, yeah? "Yeah, so I just..and if not different yeah, if not different is sameness, which is what you were saying a moment ago.." It's hard to think of not different in any other way but not right away we can make a difference conceptually it can seem to us that there's a there's a difference between just saying not not different and then saying they are the same. But when push comes to shove it's hard to think of not different in any other way than same, right? Student: "Right, and so if relation implies not different It does seem like. In addition to you know, the rocks and the spark being in relation to one another, seemingly causally, you know me and a tennis ball are also in relation somehow. Like, you know, all the relations can be established between things that we almost always say are different. And so I just feel like I would want a stronger account of why relation implies sameness in this way. Like there is a relation in some sense between tennis balls and spark. It's not one that we typically consider to be a causal relation, but in the sense of taking up space in the same vicinity perhaps you could imagine tennis balls and spark being in relation to one another." We are considering cause and effect here. We're talking about if things happen, if they are if they occur, either they are produced by causes and conditions or they aren't. And now what we are looking at is how do things.. how could things possibly arise if they are causally dependent? And then we're saying about those three options we can say that either cause and effect identical, that's a fair question to ask. Similarly we could ask the opposite question are cause and effect different from each other?
And if we fail to find a basis for defending either of those two accounts then we could say they are both. So we're not we are not..so we're talking about events where we do have a sense of cause and effect. So if first we have two rocks that produce a spark and then two tennis balls that don't, then the first..and if we say this is the kind of causal relationship that we're after--hitting two things and producing a sprout-- then the two rocks would be an example of cause and the two tennis ball would be an example of non-cause. Student: "Yes of the spark.." Yes. Just of the spark. They have many other things that they can do and be causes of. Student: "But the question is are the rocks the cause? It's like are the rocks different from the spark? That's the question at hand. And so the question at hand is about sameness or difference. My understanding of your argument for why they couldn't be different is that there's some kind of relation between rocks and spark that isn't there between tennis balls and spark." Yeah. "And so unless you're simply saying relation, as such, implies sameness--which I don't think you could say right? Because there's some relation that could be drawn between tennis balls and spark but what is the account that's being made of the specific kind of relation such that there could not be a difference given that that relation holds? Do you see what I am saying?" Yeah, I think so. In this case, I think it's useful to say just 'not different.' If the two.. if cause and effect... ..if the very idea of cause and effect does involve the notion of relationship then difference cannot be a proper description of those two. There is something that brings them together. Like the example of information for example, if information is passed whatever scientific account of the arising of the spark we would come up with, is also one that connects the two. So things that are things that are different entirely different from each other.. in other words what we're saying here is just pure difference is not a fact of cause and effect. Student: "Pure difference cannot possess the kind of relationship that spark and rocks possess." Yeah. "And why not? Pure difference If cause and effect are purely different then also.. Just as the rocks and the spark are purely different, so the tennis balls and the spark are purely different Why is it then that only in some cases is there a causal relationship and not in others? If cause and effect are as purely different from each other as any random non-cause and that given effect.
Student: "Just thinking out loud here, but I think there is an appeal in these kind of common sense objects like seeds and sprouts and rocks and sparks but I'm wondering if we're almost kind of aiming our analysis at a kind of too gross or too complex or compounded level because if we were to kind of play out the scenario of the rocks and sparks in slow motion, maybe I'm a bit rusty on my four conditions, but could it be that the rocks are conditions but you know not necessarily the principal cause? Because rocks obviously have a causal property to produce heat. And then something may happen between the rocks being banged together and there being spikes there that may be the cause of the spikes that may be some phenomenon that is related to heat, which is of course we're veering back again in the direction of cause and result being the same but I think my main point is, and this has been bugging me for a couple of days, we take these common sense objects it's nice because we can perceive them. But are we already kind of working on an inherently somewhat illusory level? And do we need to take our analysis down to a more almost fundamental level almost of reality?" Yeah, that's a very good question. So if we say that there's a property for producing heat that is there, yeah then as you said, then already we have found what it is that's the same. Is the heat the property for producing..
Is the property for producing heat something altogether different from heat? We could ask ourselves. That's a very tough stance to take, that the property for something the property for producing something is entirely different from that which is produced.
So it's important to.. This sense that we are talking about very coarse and simple objects and our very what to say, unsophisticated understanding of how things happen, and that's what we are analyzing here. So, okay we know that there are much more sophisticated and subtle ways of explaining causality.
And probably to the extent that very few of us here, if any, will feel that they have a good sense of what the best account of causality is but we know that there are some very very powerful accounts in the sciences that are proven successfully to produce amazing effects, no? So there's a depth and a complexity of this issue of causality that we are somehow completely ignoring here. But then again we can try to look at whatever scientific accounts we have of cause and effect, and simply look at the the principles and the concepts that are used there. And then we can again, ask basically the same question. I don't think it matters terribly much at all whether we consider simple, common sensical examples of, for example, two rocks that that when struck together produce a spark. Or whether we talk about deep theories of physics.
Of course when we construct a theory we are free to think In any way we like, yeah? And we are certainly capable of thinking all these things. That's another very important point that I haven't brought up yet that we haven't talked about, which is
the fact that we can think about causes and conditions as.= different and the fact that we can think about them as same and so on Remains a fact regardless of whatever we can show about the real nature of causes and conditions and they're not being the same, not being different, and so on.. We can still very well go on thinking about them as different and same and probably we will. We will keep thinking about the seed and the sprout as two different things, and at the same time when the plant grows there then we will say, "That's the--" as the classical example is, "That's the plant I planted." Even if it has grown and become a big tree we will speak about it in this way as if we say that the cause and the effect is the same. So we think in these wild ways that have no problem whatsoever dealing with or using notions of sameness and difference with respect to causes and effects. That happens and has done so since time without beginning and no matter how much analysis we put into this, that doesn't mean that we can't think in this way. Of course we can, but what we are very crucially doing here is just asking the simple question. Is it really so? Is our account of things not just a practical way of speaking? Because we know from experience that certain ways of speaking allow us to be successful and other ways of speaking close the door. And certain ways of thinking makes us able to get what we want avoid what we don't want. Other ways of thinking gets us into trouble. So we're not talking about whether that's the case, whether it's nice to think about cause and effect as same and different in such and such situation. It can certainly be so. But we are asking: when we say these things, when we think in these ways that may be more or less successful, do we actually capture anything about the way things actually are? That's the key question that we are asking. We're not talking anything about the utility of concepts, of these concepts, very fundamental concepts, but we are talking..same.. Cause and effect are the same. Is that actually a truthful statement? Or cause and effect are different. Is that speaking the truth? Is that saying things as they are? And we have said sameness does not work because it disregards the way the very idea of cause and effect is is an idea of something that is.. of two things that can be compared to each other. That's why we can identify the cause and so get the result. If they were the same, we couldn't do all of this. So the very idea of causality is one that relies on different on difference of cause and effect Is it then the case that that's how really and truly causes and effects are? That they are then different? No, because just as much as the very idea of causality involves a notion of difference so is it crucial for causes and effects to be causes and effects that they are connected. And purely different entities are not connected.
So the second alternative also falls Anyone who thinks that still, as we talked about before, anyone who.. keep thinking about it at home also and otherwise if you have either a clear idea of why things could nevertheless be not just things but causes and effects could nevertheless be different from each other despite what we just said? Despite us saying that pure difference denies relationship and so difference couldn't be a description of cause and effect. Do you have a way of
of nevertheless finding a place for the idea that cause and effect are different, as being a truth a true statement?
Student: "I'm still not there in having a pure definition, but what I wanted to ask you was so, in science of science we have.. there is ways of thinking that are reductionistic and, you know, hard science-wise like we do about the stone and then there are ways of thinking that are more, you know, socially looking at the social reality. I mean, I don't know where I'm putting myself by already making these definitions, but I was just wondering It's that still applicable to constructs? I know we talked about it yesterday, but.. yeah the way I perceive reality or speech, you know which is also reality, so it's not only stones and atoms, but How would that..how does reasoning apply? I'm just trying to get an idea of.." "So, okay, let me.. so speech--let's say speech-level, like construction, so we are saying words. They are not physical like stones." Okay, right, right. "And then there is some thinking which is, I mean that's also a label but it's thought something is..I'm imagining something that is not coming out of my mouth. And that's also also real, a reality, right?" Mm-hmm. "So..my question is does that still apply? Because that is for me just as important to look at like refuting. Or is that outside of what we are investigating here? How would I refute my speech? How would I look at causality in speech? How would I look at causality in thoughts?"
You mean the concept of? "Yeah, like what if I had to.. Okay, let me say, my aim is to see if Nāgārjuna is right that nothing is arising, right? So we're looking at causality. When I say something You know and then do you say something? That's a form of causality." Yeah. "If I associate if I think about you know, an elephant and then a picture of an elephant comes up in my head that's how it feels like that's also a certain form of causality. So I'm looking at causality that it's not you know touchable. Is that? How would you apply that? I'm just a bit confused as you can hear." So you gave two examples: it's like you say something and then I say something, like right now, and so it's the same principle. Because you said something, you can you can depend on me--I mean you won't know for sure whether I'm going to say something--but you have a quite justified expectation that I'm going to say something back. If you are asking a question in this kind of situation, no? So in other words that cause your speech act is one that has effects of this kind that is happening now that somebody else expects, you know? So if you said that my speech act and yours--those two are entirely different. There's this one here and that one there and they are just purely different. Why does this connection happen? And then secondly..what was it? Student: "It was that thought-level so, um.. You know, I mean it could be I'm just saying that the non the non- real, non-physical stuff. So yeah, like I'm thinking about an elephant and then a pink elephant comes up to my mind." So whatever theory we have about how concepts work and mental appearances and so on and so forth Within the theory--whether it's a theory we have adopted or one that we have developed ourselves-- what you just said: "I think of it and then some kind of appearance occurs in my mind." It's cause and effect in the same way. If you are thinking of the elephant and the appearance of the elephant were utterly distinct entities just as different from your thinking of my hat, what to say.. if you're thinking of the elephant would be just as different from the appearance of the elephant in your mind as the appearance of my hat in your mind then Why is it that it's not like that? Why is it that when you think of elephant you get to see an elephant and not my hat? So if-- if cause and effect were purely different, when you thought of the elephant, you might just as well get to see my hat. Or to To see anything else in the whole world. There's something that connects Student: "Yeah, that was my question. So I just apply it to anything and everything on each--whatever comes up, actually, basically. Whatever it's physical or mental social or whatever?" Yeah. That's the amazing thing. We're dealing with very very wide categories, yeah? That do seem to kept to it's not that we have to then think, "Oh, but in this particular context same and different doesn't really work. Here's a kind of--at least I don't think so. Yeah, please feel free to obviously, you should try very hard to find some counter example. But amazingly wherever we look whether it's very crude thinking, whether it's very subtle, very complex, whether it's very simple--everything seems to fall into these categories of same different when we talk about causality. And that's why the implications of what we get to understand are so enormous. So now..
if that is the case that we have now refuted the first alternative and the second also we have said that the very idea of causality makes it so that we cannot say cause and effect are the same because the cause and effect clearly stand out as not just the same. And if we also say that cause and effect couldn't be simply different from each other because we do notice these causal relationships. Our whole life is structured in terms of these causal relationships. If it weren't for our perception of causal relationships, we certainly wouldn't be where we are. So since causal relationship involves commonality and indeed relation, then just as hopeless as the idea of identical cause and effect is, in the same way cause and effect being purely different is also a hopeless idea. Of course, that's not true. But when we talk about cause and effect then it seems we still have to use these concepts nonetheless, no? We have to say here's a cause and here's an effect. You see, seed is one thing effect--the sprout--is another. So we use the notion of different and then at the same time we have to say but you know the seed is the cause of the sprout so if you put it in the ground and if you give it some water and some sunshine and so on then you know, the seed will transform and and begin to to shoot a sprout and that will grow into a plant.
So in other words we say that the world is made of things that aren't just different from each other. These cause..the very idea of cause and effect implies commonality and relationship and so this world is not made of different things. As indeed very venerable and powerful masters of Buddhist philosophy would otherwise. often say that this world is made of different things. That is not true but..
So we still have to think and speak in this way using both sameness and difference. So how about the third alternative? That seems to be then where we are driven to..
So about now because we had...some of us met to discuss a little further about these matters yesterday and we considered the philosophy of the great Buddhist master Dharmakīrti who indeed is the hallmark of his philosophy to say this, that the real things are all different from each other. The world is made of of things that are different from each other. And then we yeah, talked about the critique of the second alternative that things arise from things that are different from themselves and when I left when went home I just.. to my mind came Śāntarakṣita's... Okay, this is a little digression but I think it's worth it anyway, yeah? This issue..
Because the framework developed by the Buddhist logicians has been so incredibly successful and influential it is something that as a Buddhist one is sort of hard-pressed to say, "Well really in the end it doesn't make sense." So we were talking about that yesterday: Do we really have to say that or not? If we are Buddhists, or think of ourselves as Buddhists would like to be Buddhists then it's easy to dismiss Sāṃkhya perhaps and say, "Yeah, the Sāṃkhya's are wrong. The Buddhist will have it right." But when it comes to the Buddhist point of view and then we see that the the Buddhist point of view seems to be fundamentally wrong. Then what do we do? So that's what we were talking about. Then some philosophers in of Mādhyamaka, they make a big effort to incorporate the Dharmakīrti approach to logic and epistemology and others say that that is completely useless like yeah, why would you even try?
But then what I thought of when walking home is how the master who is sort of the classic example of someone who really embodied and incorporates the logic and epistemology of Dharmakīrti into a Mādhyamaka context, namely Śāntarakṣita. He himself says about this that it is compelling only as long as you don't investigate This is quite amazing, no? Like he makes an enormous.. He lays claim to being yeah, I want to say in India probably one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers at all. Some I've heard say that Śāntarakṣita is more influential than Nāgārjuna, and yet.. So he certainly does this, he incorporates Candrakīrtian thinking into a Mādhyamaka context. But at the same time he says very clearly that this marvelous system is compelling only as long as you don't investigate. It's quite amazing. So now about the both alternative. So what about that? The trouble with both is that it is
The trouble with both is that it is a combination of two things that we have found to be
not just partially successful, but 100% unsuccessful in terms of accounting for the relationship between cause and effect. If it were that there was something quite right about sameness and something quite right about difference, then we could we could make a combination out of it and say, "yeah. Just get the good part from sameness and the good part from difference and then you mix it together and you have the true story. But we have found that the idea of sameness simply has nothing to do with the idea of cause and effect and we have found that the idea of pure difference simply has nothing to do with cause and effect. So how could we expect that bringing two completely failed attempts at explaining cause and effect to be the solution to our problem? Please try and think about that. Yeah before we go one question.
Student: "I mean for that I think that they don't work exclusively, right? Like sameness alone doesn't work and difference alone doesn't work. But together it's different like the whole is different than the parts separate. So like just as if we had different parts of a computer it doesn't make a computer. And alone they don't work. And we couldn't say that that is a computer. But when we put them all together we get something that's different from what we had at the beginning in a way and at the same time
What we're saying right, it arises in a way that's a combination of two, like the different parts together can make up something that will work, that separate wouldn't. But I don't think that because alone they didn't work they can't work together. I don't think that rules it out." So we have to talk about it in this way, as you say, you know, that we get something that is different. There's a computer that is up and running is something very different from the parts when they lay there in front of us. But it's the same parts. So in other words, we have to talk about sameness just as we have to talk about difference. But where do we get the license to talk about either one of them from? We're forced to it. We can't make sense of anything without thinking in these words and yet when we look closer at what we're saying we find nothing. So on that note, let's let's stop here. Try to think really well about this at home and when you..
when you come to some interesting point, then try to just pause and acknowledge where you're at. I think that that is a way that we can sort of try to connect with the resting approach. Whenever you feel that you have seen something or wherever you feel that something has become completely incomprehensible-- whenever you feel that you have... your big question mark or whenever you think "aha!" Try to not just ignore that event but try to to sort of go with it a little bit and it can give some special energy to the whole enterprise. Thank you very much.
17:26
Root of The Middle Way – Session 08
Sameness, Difference, or Both?
Teacher:
Location:
- Rangjung Yeshe Institute - Nepal
- Date: February 15, 2023
Description >>
Session 8 delves into causality, sameness, and difference. It explores two alternatives for causality: arising from causes and conditions or random occurrence. Chaos briefly emerges as another option. The discussion questions whether relation implies sameness in all cases and contemplates a more fundamental understanding of causality. Thomas underscores the distinction between practical utility and the fundamental truth of causality.
