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Which of these parts is the chariot? Nagasena
would answer that none of them are. Likewise,
whatever constitutes “me” cannot be pointed
to, but nonetheless continues to affect things
in the universe now and in the future.butter only exists because milk
exists; it depends on the existence
of milk. In the same way, says
Nagasena, “do the elements of
being join one another in serial
succession: one element perishes,
another arises, succeeding each
other as it were instantaneously.”
A category mistake
In the 20th century, the British
philosopher Gilbert Ryle attacked
the idea that the material body is
linked to a nonphysical mind. In
doing so, he used an argument that
is exactly parallel to Nagasena’s.
A visitor to the city of Oxford who
has been shown various colleges,
libraries, and so on, asks, “But
where is the university?” Ryle
claims that there is no university
over and above its constituent parts.
Likewise, there is no mind
that exists separately from the
body. People who suppose that
there is are making a category
mistake—where things of one kind
are presented as though they
belong to another. It is wrong to
treat the mind as though it is an
object of substance, when mind
refers to a collection of capacities
and dispositions.
BUDDHISM
What we are today comes
from our thoughts of
yesterday, and our present
thoughts build our life
of tomorrow: our life is the
creation of our mind.
BuddhaToward the end of the 20th century,
and into the 21st, most Western
philosophers have argued for a
materialist (or physicalist) view of
the mind: that mind is simply a
word that describes brain function.
For modern science, there is no self
over and above the body; the brain
performs a complex processing of
experience and response, which we
think of as our mind, or self.
This differs from Nagasena only
in the way that the sage applies
a closer analysis of the way in
which we experience ourselves as
thinking, feeling, and responding
beings. As he pointed out to King
Milinda, even the fact that we do
this does not mean that there is a
separate thing called the self.
The other modern philosophy
that unwittingly builds on this
Buddhist idea is existentialism. It
is often summed up in the phrase
“existence precedes essence,”
meaning that we are born and exist
before our lives have obtained anysense of purpose. Existentialism
suggests that we shape our lives by
the choices we make, and should
acknowledge our responsibility for
doing so: we are what we choose
to do—we do not have an internal
real self or essence.Absolute truth
This discussion of the self
highlights an important feature of
Buddhist teaching: the difference
between conventional and absolute
truth. In order to function normally,
we have to assume a pragmatic
or practical approach and refer
to objects as though they have
a recognizable, permanent, and
independent existence.
It would be impossible to
communicate if everything had
to be described in terms of its
constituent parts. Buddhism
therefore accepts the need for
such conventional truth, but
constantly guards against
mistaking it for absolute truth. ■chariot?chariot?chariot?chariot?