The Later
Buddhist Logic on Causation (Pratityasamutpada)
The usual realistic view of causation implies
the simultaneous existence of two things of which one operate in
producing the other. Cause and effect must exist simultaneously at
least during some of the time. To the realist, the potter and the
pot exist simultaneously. To the Buddhist, the potter is only a
series of point instants. In one of this instant, it is followed by
the first moment of the series of point instant called a pot. It is
an impersonal process, they is no enduring Ego’s working on the
pot. The cause ceased to exist when the effect is produced. To the
Buddhist, simultaneous existence of cause and effect is not
possible. It is only possible when both are static and causation is
than an imagination.
Existence in Buddhism is a dynamic process,
not static. What does not work, what is inefficient does not exist.
Existence is composed of a sequence of point instants which are
interdependent. Every point instant is a cause for the subsequence
point instant. Things cannot be produced by another thing. All
things and people are momentary existences. There is no real
motion, because there is no duration. There is no real production
as production requires time. It is only a limitation of our
cognition that we do not perceive the distinctness of similar
moments and assume that they represent substance and
duration.
It is an illusion to assume that a thing can
exist placidly, without acting, and then suddenly rise and produce
an action. Whatsoever exists is always acting, is always a cause.
Existence is change. What is non-cause does not exist. It is also a
non-reality.
There are two different realities, a direct
one which is pure, it is the reality of the point instant and an
indirect one attached to that point instant. The indirectly one is
an image constructed by our imagination it is the reality of the
empirical object. Consequently there are also two different
causalities, an ultimate one and an empirical one. The first being
the efficiency attached to the point instant, the transcendental
reality. The other, is the object attached to that point instant,
an empirical reality of limited duration.
A thing does not produce anything alone.
Result come into being only when there is a combination of other
elements. This totality is composed of causes and conditions. To
the realists, causation consists of a succession of two static
things. It is a one-to-one relationship. To the Buddhist, there is
no destruction or creation of things. There is always the present
of constant, uninterrupted, infinitely graduated changes going on.
A result can be produced by human cooperation, but it is just one
cause at a meeting point of the convergent stream of causes. There
is infinite variety of circumstances that can influence the
production of an event. Needless to said, there are some fairly
predictable regularities of sequence that can be cognized by us in
different lines of causation.
To the Buddhists, empirical existence is a
state of Bondage comparable to a prison. To the determinist, the
Buddha declared that there is freewill, free action but there is
also responsibility. As to liberty, there is also retribution based
on the laws of causality. The teaching of karma is just one form of
causality. Life is a constant movement towards a final deliverance.
It is this movement, this life that is subjected to strict causal
laws. When final deliverance has being attained in Nirvana,
causation is then extinct.
We can distinguish four main shapes of the
theory of Causation or Dependent Origination, two from early
Buddhism and two others of the Mahayana tradition. The early
discourses on the Dependent Origination doctrine are found in the
Suttas. It is describe in a series of twelve or less conditioned
links with moral bearing where there is bondage and deliverance.
The general one is found in the later philosophical treatises where
all the elements are explained and the different line of causation
concluded. In early Buddhism, the elements exist but are
impermanence.
The Mahayana interpretation of the doctrine of
Dependent Origination is quite different. In the first period,
interdependence means relativity. Relativity means the unreality of
the separate elements as each element only arises when the right
causes and conditions are present. The elements are nothing by
themselves. The twelve conditioned links of Dependent Origination
is declared as a reference to phenomenal life only. The general
theory of causation is likewise declared as conditional and unreal
as well. Thus, there is no plurality, no differentiation, no
beginning and no end. The cosmos is only a motionless illusive
reality.
In the last period of the idealistic and
logical school of Mahayana development, the Dependent Origination
doctrine is concluded by Santiraksita as follows: ‘I salute the
Buddha who has proclaimed the principle of Dependent Origination,
according to which everything is kinetic, there is no God, no
matter, no substance, no quality etc., but there is strict
conformity between every fact and its result… Dependent Origination
here means motion, a Cosmos which is essentially kinetic. In
both these periods, non-duality and emptiness becomes the central
theme of the teaching of Causation of the Mahayana
tradition.