An increasing number of Sanskrit scholars have suggested that translating sunyata as "nothingness" may be misleading. For example, there have been (a few, admittedly) who translate the Kabbalistic "Ein Sof" as nothing - but this is neither nihilism nor anything else related to the ordinary use of the English word "nothing."
It points to an infinite fullness, an infinite potentiality which many suggest is better translated as openness.
With this, we find that - at least as Christian Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart describes the word - we have come back to God.
Exactly so. In Kabbalah, the word "ayin" refers to upper worlds and means "nothing" but that's only from our limited temporal perspective. It is very much "something."
Yes, I think sunyata's "nothing" is also very much a something, and only nothing from our limited temporal perspective.
Which reminds me..... I'm betting you've heard this before, but I never tire of it...
So one day, the cantor is getting ready to leave the temple, and is seized with an overwhelming sense of humility and devotion to the Lord. He walks up to the front of the temple, gets on his knees and cries out, "Oh Lord, truly I am nothing before you, the least of your children. Truly truly, I am nothing."
Well, the rabbi, who was also getting ready to leave, was so moved by this, he went up to the front of the temple and got on his knees, just to the right of the cantor, and prays, "Lord, Lord, I am less than the dust of your Feet. Surely, I am nothing."
Meanwhile, the janitor, who had heard both of these testimonies of sincerity, humility and devotion, was similarly moved, and went up to the front of the temple and got on his knees, just to the left of the cantor, and called out, "Oh Lord, I am the least of your children, not worthy of the dust of your feet. Truly truly, I am nothing!"
At which point the rabbi jabs the cantor in the ribs and whispers, "Hah! Look who think's HE's nothing!!"
Madhyamika metaphysics is interesting as a repudiation of Greek substance-ontology (which lies behind the materialistic paradigm of Modern science), but as a critique of that ontology and the materialistic worldview, I think it's misguided.
The real core of both Greek/Western metaphysics and Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics, is to give a comprehensive account of human nature and of human purpose. Both need to account, in one way or another, for moral agency - and pursuant to that, they both need to render a clear account of the phenomenon of causation in general (which in turn is needed to account for the phenomenon of change as such, as the most ubiquitous and obvious fact about the world).
For the Greeks/for the West, change is a function of essences or substances. Part of what constitutes an essence, is its power to effect further changes. The Greeks thought of change as a great metaphysical conundrum, they puzzled over how to explain how there could be any change at all - for when a thing changes, it is no longer the thing that it is.
The Buddhists, in contrast, seem to have taken change not as something that needed explanation, but as a given of their metaphysical worldview, a fundamental datum. The Greeks explained change (partly) in terms of essence, but the Buddhists, taking change for granted, decided that they could dispense with essences. Again, their motive for doing this was rooted ultimately in their anatta-philosophical anthropology. This I think was a category-mistake: they took an insight which had real validity in the moral and spiritual realm (the importance of self-overcoming) and reified it as a denial of the metaphysical reality of the self. The Buddha discouraged this kind of speculation, and for a reason.
Nonetheless Nagarjuna asserted that just as the self was empty of any essence, so too were all things. Instead the being of everything was radically contingent, the sum and substance of everything was nothing but a confluence of heteronymous influences. Not only does this not account for how change happens, it sounds awfully reductionist, to me.
But if all things are empty (of svabhava, "own-being"), then we could say that Emptiness is what ultimately characterizes the world. I think the Madhyamika thinkers were onto something, not in the sense that in "reality" there is Nothing, but in the sense that the world and everything in it is radically contingent - this is an important insight and one which often goes missing in Western metaphysical thought.
But apart from this, the Buddhist attack on essences ultimately led them to recapitulate the very conceptual puzzles that first plagued the Ancient Greeks, about the possibility of change - which, again, they had assumed in the first place! Madhyamika thought ends up running into a metaphysical cul-de-sac, and is really not the best instrument for critiquing the metaphysics of Modern science.
Hi, thank you for the comment! There's a lot going on here, which I really appreciate, but perhaps more than I can adequately reply to in one go. I think the point you make about the Buddhists assuming change is an important and interesting one, and I'll certainly have to explore it further. As for their worldview being excessively reductive, I'm not so sure. Certainly, any metaphysics is trying to account for the plenitude of being with a few simple principles - so I suppose you could argue that metaphysics is a necessarily reductive enterprise. But beyond that, I think the appeal of their view is that it doesn't look to a given being (matter, for example) to explain all the others. In other words, the whole is kind of preserved.
I hope that makes sense! As I say, I appreciate your reply and the issue of change is undoubtedly something I need to explore further. My thanks.
I do think we can draw an edifying conclusion concerning the metaphysical or ontological, from the moral-spiritual insights of the importance of self-emptying. Our experience of the world reminds us of the impermanence of all things - and concentrating on this, in turn, can help us cultivate the freedom from attachment that is essential to our liberation from suffering.
Beautiful reflections.
One more:
An increasing number of Sanskrit scholars have suggested that translating sunyata as "nothingness" may be misleading. For example, there have been (a few, admittedly) who translate the Kabbalistic "Ein Sof" as nothing - but this is neither nihilism nor anything else related to the ordinary use of the English word "nothing."
It points to an infinite fullness, an infinite potentiality which many suggest is better translated as openness.
With this, we find that - at least as Christian Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart describes the word - we have come back to God.
Exactly so. In Kabbalah, the word "ayin" refers to upper worlds and means "nothing" but that's only from our limited temporal perspective. It is very much "something."
Yes, I think sunyata's "nothing" is also very much a something, and only nothing from our limited temporal perspective.
Which reminds me..... I'm betting you've heard this before, but I never tire of it...
So one day, the cantor is getting ready to leave the temple, and is seized with an overwhelming sense of humility and devotion to the Lord. He walks up to the front of the temple, gets on his knees and cries out, "Oh Lord, truly I am nothing before you, the least of your children. Truly truly, I am nothing."
Well, the rabbi, who was also getting ready to leave, was so moved by this, he went up to the front of the temple and got on his knees, just to the right of the cantor, and prays, "Lord, Lord, I am less than the dust of your Feet. Surely, I am nothing."
Meanwhile, the janitor, who had heard both of these testimonies of sincerity, humility and devotion, was similarly moved, and went up to the front of the temple and got on his knees, just to the left of the cantor, and called out, "Oh Lord, I am the least of your children, not worthy of the dust of your feet. Truly truly, I am nothing!"
At which point the rabbi jabs the cantor in the ribs and whispers, "Hah! Look who think's HE's nothing!!"
Madhyamika metaphysics is interesting as a repudiation of Greek substance-ontology (which lies behind the materialistic paradigm of Modern science), but as a critique of that ontology and the materialistic worldview, I think it's misguided.
The real core of both Greek/Western metaphysics and Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics, is to give a comprehensive account of human nature and of human purpose. Both need to account, in one way or another, for moral agency - and pursuant to that, they both need to render a clear account of the phenomenon of causation in general (which in turn is needed to account for the phenomenon of change as such, as the most ubiquitous and obvious fact about the world).
For the Greeks/for the West, change is a function of essences or substances. Part of what constitutes an essence, is its power to effect further changes. The Greeks thought of change as a great metaphysical conundrum, they puzzled over how to explain how there could be any change at all - for when a thing changes, it is no longer the thing that it is.
The Buddhists, in contrast, seem to have taken change not as something that needed explanation, but as a given of their metaphysical worldview, a fundamental datum. The Greeks explained change (partly) in terms of essence, but the Buddhists, taking change for granted, decided that they could dispense with essences. Again, their motive for doing this was rooted ultimately in their anatta-philosophical anthropology. This I think was a category-mistake: they took an insight which had real validity in the moral and spiritual realm (the importance of self-overcoming) and reified it as a denial of the metaphysical reality of the self. The Buddha discouraged this kind of speculation, and for a reason.
Nonetheless Nagarjuna asserted that just as the self was empty of any essence, so too were all things. Instead the being of everything was radically contingent, the sum and substance of everything was nothing but a confluence of heteronymous influences. Not only does this not account for how change happens, it sounds awfully reductionist, to me.
But if all things are empty (of svabhava, "own-being"), then we could say that Emptiness is what ultimately characterizes the world. I think the Madhyamika thinkers were onto something, not in the sense that in "reality" there is Nothing, but in the sense that the world and everything in it is radically contingent - this is an important insight and one which often goes missing in Western metaphysical thought.
But apart from this, the Buddhist attack on essences ultimately led them to recapitulate the very conceptual puzzles that first plagued the Ancient Greeks, about the possibility of change - which, again, they had assumed in the first place! Madhyamika thought ends up running into a metaphysical cul-de-sac, and is really not the best instrument for critiquing the metaphysics of Modern science.
Hi, thank you for the comment! There's a lot going on here, which I really appreciate, but perhaps more than I can adequately reply to in one go. I think the point you make about the Buddhists assuming change is an important and interesting one, and I'll certainly have to explore it further. As for their worldview being excessively reductive, I'm not so sure. Certainly, any metaphysics is trying to account for the plenitude of being with a few simple principles - so I suppose you could argue that metaphysics is a necessarily reductive enterprise. But beyond that, I think the appeal of their view is that it doesn't look to a given being (matter, for example) to explain all the others. In other words, the whole is kind of preserved.
I hope that makes sense! As I say, I appreciate your reply and the issue of change is undoubtedly something I need to explore further. My thanks.
I do think we can draw an edifying conclusion concerning the metaphysical or ontological, from the moral-spiritual insights of the importance of self-emptying. Our experience of the world reminds us of the impermanence of all things - and concentrating on this, in turn, can help us cultivate the freedom from attachment that is essential to our liberation from suffering.
As a Buddhist scholar, I think this summary is well done. Thank you.
If you interviewed Thompson about Why I Am Not A Buddhist, you might be interested in the long correspondence I had with him about that book's thesis a couple years ago: https://loveofallwisdom.com/blog/2020/06/an-index-to-the-thompson-lele-correspondence/
Thank you Amod!