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KATECROSBY
PERSON. SeeAnatman/Atman (No-Self/Self); Pud-
galavada
PHILOSOPHY
Within the Buddhist tradition there exist enormously
sophisticated systems of thought. Whether these sys-
tems should be regarded as “philosophy” or “theology”
or something else is a difficult question and a topic of
much debate. Philosophyis a Western word and con-
cept, derived from the Greek origins of Western think-
ing, and no traditional Buddhist language had a word
analogous to philosophyprior to the modern era. The
Buddhist term most closely related is DHARMA, which
means something like truthsor teachings,especially
teachings about how to live.
It is often said that the Buddhist teachings are more
philosophical than religious because of their open
spirit of inquiry and their lack of a central concept of
God. In this sense, philosophymeans “overarching
ideas about the nature of the world and the meaning
of human life that guide daily living.” By this defini-
tion, much Buddhist dharma is indeed philosophy. But
it is important to recognize that this is not what pro-
fessional philosophers in the modern West mean by
that term. For most contemporary philosophers, phi-
losophy is concerned with logical analysis and the
structure of human thinking. Although a few Bud-
dhists have taken up these issues, especially in India,
they have done so under the guidance of what they take
to be larger and more important questions that are ul-
timately ethical and spiritual (e.g., What is excellence
of human character? What is enlightenment and how
can it be achieved?). Logic and analysis have no stand-
ing on their own as Buddhist concerns. One reason for
this is that early Buddhist sutras depict the Buddha re-
jecting abstract philosophical speculation in preference
for practical techniques of self-transformation. An-
other reason is that very early in the Buddhist tradi-
tion philosophers attained a high level of psychologi-
cal sophistication. Through the rigors of meditative
practice, they came to realize that what one considers
to be true—no matter how good one is at logical analy-
sis—is shaped and conditioned by the state of one’s
character. What this means is that desires, intentions,
and thoughts of a certain kind will inevitably lead a
person to reason out the truth of the matter in ways
that are in part preshaped by those same desires, in-
tentions, and thoughts.
Therefore, in much Buddhist thought, truth is not
simply a matter of logic or reason, since both logic and
reason are themselves dependent on other factors. For
Buddhists, realizing the truth is the result of a great
deal of internal work beyond analytical reasoning, and
it is for this reason that philosophy in the Buddhist tra-
dition is best classified as a subcategory under “means
to awakening” or, more appropriately, under “MEDITA-
TION.” Most analytical thinking in the Buddhist tradi-
tion takes place in the context of meditation, which can
be divided into two overarching categories: s ́amatha
(calming) and VIPASSANA(SANSKRIT, VIPAS ́YANA; con-
templation). Contemplation, or insight meditation, is
a conceptual practice focusing on the analysis of the
world and one’s internal conceptions of it. Most Bud-
dhist philosophical writings are intended to be used in
this kind of meditative practice, and most of them were
written within a monastic setting. Buddhist philoso-
phy, therefore, has a practical intention: It is meant to
open and transform the mind of the meditator and
lead, ultimately, to BODHI(AWAKENING). The idea of
philosophical thinking outside of that spiritual and
ethical setting is utterly foreign to Buddhist culture.Issues
Among the many issues prominent in Buddhist “phi-
losophy,” the following are most instructive for get-
ting a sense of how this tradition of thought is shaped:
No-self, change and causality, morality and ethics, and
philosophy and truth.No-self.The idea for which Buddhists are perhaps best
known is the claim that there is no self (anatman); that
what we take to be the true inner core of a human be-
ing is actually an illusory process of constant change.
This idea runs against the grain of ordinary thinking,
not just in Western cultures but in Asia as well. The
Buddhist critique of the concept of the self is based on
the conclusion that in fact people never experience an
unchanging inner core, and that their ideas about that
core are derived from a quite natural tendency toPHILOSOPHY