on the bauddhic episteme sati-vipassana

1 Opening statement

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Profossor Gombrich in a recent interview (2003) remarked, "The Pali Canon says that the doctrine of Dependent Origination, with its twelve links, is extremely obscure. The Buddha even reprimands Ananda for saying that he understood it ... Joanna Jurewicz has finally understood it. Without denying the mainstream interpretation, she has shown that the links are in the order that they are and are the specific links that they are, because again, the Buddha was taking off from Vedic cosmology."

A plea: I would like to have access to Jureswicz's articles and study her methodology.

2 Hypothesis

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I will put forth the following interpretive case. If Bauddhic sati is equated to Indra, the Vedic king of the gods, then vipassanā – "insight (meditation)" – is the godly weapon that Indra welds.

3 Indra and his Weapon

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In the well known Bauddha doctrine of sati-vipassanā the epistemes sati and vipassanā teach an ancient salvic path that " (i.) tears asunder the veil of ignorance, (ii.) brings knowledge, and (iii.) liberates people from the cycle of birth and death" (Vishuddimagga).

Question: Where is the god(head) or "transcendent authority" to be found in Bauddha interiority?

Answer: It is found in the concept of sati.

Bauddha doctrine imbues "all humans with intentionality" (Tambiah 1984: 181). "Intentionality" is the Bauddha redefinition of karman/kamma, i.e. from "sacrificial ritualistic action" in the earliest sense followed then by 'ritual prescriptions,' to general 'action' in the social sense of 'work,' and then to what Gombrich (51-6) explains as 'intentionality.' "I posit that 'intention' leads to kamma, 'involvement,' is Gautama's answer to Brahmin ritualism" (51)[1]. But we should not be diverted from our microcosmic concern here of "human interiority" and Bauddha sati, which modern English 'Buddhism' institutionalized as "mindfulness." However sati has no intention of itself, nor can one intend (to) sati, it would seem. Does sati really exist? Can we label it a fetish? Sati is portrayed as an element, as an impulse, as a function that "sees." It is said to be "mindful," as of objects. Yet is sati not the mind itself. 'Why?' Because it sees, "barely notices" (Tambiah 42) the mind itself. Therefore sati is not the "self," nor the person, the ego, nor the 'you,' nor the 'I.' 'Why?' Because Bauddha dogma rules these out vis-à-vis anatta. We will come to this later.

As elaborated out of the vipassanā doctrine, sati is said to be something "promoted by restricting attention" (Tambiah 42); and so sati is not "attention" either. So what does sati do? It mindfulnesses, one would awkwardly presume; that is to say, if sati can be said to do anything. But this cannot be said. Sati is situated, nonetheless, in the course of vipassanā, which is troublingly rendered as either 'insight,' 'meditation,' or worse, 'insight meditation. Sati as paired and combined with vipassanā is very much the basis of early Bauddha data acquisition and formulation. Or if not actual 'gathering,' then 'analysis' for sure. Sati-vipassanā (or satipatthāna) is described as "noticing…attending to the facts of perception as they arise," as physical senses "or in the mind" (42). Sati then is situated independent, autonomous, and transcendent of the body and the mind, not to mention the non-existent "you" in accord with Bauddha doctrine. Still, professor Tambiah faithfully rehearses Buddhagosh's Path of Purification (Vishuddimagga),

In due course, the normal illusions of continuity and rationality that sustain cognitive and perceptual processes give way to a correct apprehension of the random discrete units out of which reality is continually being structured. With emergence the true realization of these processes, mindfulness matures into insight (42, emphasis added).

Until finally,

Contemplating mind and its object, previously separate, are now nondualistically conjoined, and in unbroken succession occurs a chain of insights of mind knowing itself, culmination in the state of nibbāna (43).

This is quite a tidy strategy; indeed, nothing short of a veritable Bauddhic revolutionary manifesto of soteriological interiority; classically modern in its grand monolithic systematization and its universal embrace of all mankind, and the entire cosmos. Yet try to notice the glib discontinuity when at some non-point sati transfers its perceptive load-function and the ball gets passed to vipassanā ('insight'). It is a tricky manoeuvre, a sleight of foot that has much too long gone unnoticed, gone uninterrupted. But with a flash of hermeneutical suspicion-cum-insight this fundamental sati-vipassanā strategy, which has always seemed dour if not counterintuitive, is rendered now in some way sensible. How else to interpret the invincible duo but as metaphor for Indra and his lightening bolt? If sati is Indra the king of the gods, then vipassanā is Indra's holy weapon, his adamantine research tool.

Indra's favourite weapon is commonly understood to be the vajra, usually rendered as thunderbolt. But this heaven-hurled weapon is elsewhere said to be composed of metal or stone. In any case, Indra's jihādic arsenal certainly comprised a number of delivery systems, including slings. What is more, his sky-borne projectiles were not the only vajra, but included, as mentioned above, strokes of lightening, together with meteors, comets, and rocks. "Although Indra's weapon is usually explicitly designated by the term vajra," writes Gonda, "and vajra is generally described as metallic (ayasa), it is incidentally spoken of as a rock (parvata) or 'stone of, or: from, the heavens' (divo asmanam)" (1959: 63). In the very early Rg Veda verse the missile-welding Indra is described as such: "He hurlest forth from heaven iron missiles..., he hurleth his bolt, his dart of death." Concerning this verse, Griffith (1889) notes that Indra stands for a 'terrible God who sends affliction[2].'

As a corporal function, Indra analogues the heavens as the universal backdrop; a role metaphorically equivalent to sati; i.e., an independent, transcendent, autonomous, situatedness – an isolated witness appertaining to the data below, as it were[3]. And the diamond-like lance of his brandished vajra? It is a piercing, lance-like, surgical-strike weapon of data penetration vis-à-vis vipassanā – 'meditation!'

4 Data Acquisition in an Open Universe: Bauddha Metaphysical Methodologies

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In the developmental processes of Bauddha[4] historicization, there arise three generic quasi self-referential classifications. These are Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Tantrayāna. Each has its characteristic relationary approach to gaining favor, i.e. data, from its a priori "open" universe. In this way 'Jaino-Bauddhic' Theravda watches it; faith-driven Mahāyāna travels to it; Tantrayāna yogically becomes it. The school of the theras or five-hundred "elders"[5] accepts a rather dry, spectatorial tact and objectifies the highly analyticised facets of its emotional impinging universe. But with the dawn of Mahāyāna the universe unfastens and ignites and 'explodes in all dimensions' (Gombrich 1996: 38). Here Mahāyānic science turns phenomenological and launches deep probes in the purity and faith of its now revivified and redescribed expanse. Tantric methodology adapts to this alterity[6] with the hyperthetic reach of its corporeal-perceptive instrumentation. Such extensive retoolings compel its researchers to dilate the ontologic vein of eclipse and don, as it were, the body of the universe.

And so despite the sustained attempts in its primitive texts to stratify the heavens, and to specify and catalogue everything knowable, there remains 'a gaping vagueness at the top – in fact, there is no top at all' (38) – but a vast expansiveness, immeasurable and ineffable. Thus the Bauddha universe is plainly open-ended, in very marked contrast to its cousinly Jaina conception, which likes to represent the cosmos by closed-in diagrams (38). But more than unbounded by 'all spatial dimensions' (38), the Bauddha universe is unrestrained by 'time.' And so in vivid contrast to the Shemitic sense of temporal eternity, Bauddha apperception of its spatial dimension is rather one of timelessness and infinity.

Can deeper implications be brought to light through sustained transcultural examination of our growing catalogue of ontological archetypes? Transculturally mapping ontological archetypes ought to be an essential project of comparative religious and philosophical studies. This could well hold answers to the cultural formulation of variant conceptions of being-in-the-universal, their influence on social manipulation and formation.

5 Mythic Discourse in a Globalized world

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I have put forth the following simple case: If Bauddha sati is equated to Indra the king of the gods, then vipassanā, or so-called "insight (meditation)," is the godly weapon that Indra welds. In Bauddha doctrine Gautama teaches the ancient path of "insight" (vipassanā) that tears asunder the veil of ignorance, brings knowledge, and liberates people from the cycle of birth and death[7]. It may be worth mentioning that, more specifically, Indra is known in Bauddha tradition as Śakra (Pāli Sakkra)[8]. Well then, if it actually bears truth that sati is Indra the king of the gods, and if vipassanā is the god's holy weapon, then I have just used this weapon to tell a new story. 'Why?' That we may finally and once-and-for-all move beyond. I have demonstrated how to plumb an old myth and retell in a way that subverts the dead meaning. I have demonstrated how to bury but one of a bewildering number of the counter-hermeneutical snares and red herrings with which this path is insidiously laden, that it loosen its cultish grip on you, and you distance yourselves from rash identities, and open yourselves to the sequenced pace of the things that are now, that you may finally understand that "Buddha-ism" is historically and culturally derived form Brāhmanism, and that the entirety of its ethical, religious, and philosophical outlook is but a grand unmitigated plagiarism of earlier, largely Vedic conceptions and sources.

6 Hyperthesis (by way of conclusion)

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I have put forth the following interpretive case. If Bauddhic sati is equated to Indra the Vedic king of the gods, then vipassanā – "insight (meditation)" – is the godly weapon that Indra welds. Well if it bears some truth that sati is Indra, and vipassanā connotes his holy weapon, I will use this weapon to tell a new story; I will demonstrate the way to plumb an old myth and recast it in a manner that subverts dead meaning. And by burying but one of a bewildering number of counter-hermeneutical red herrings and snares that have insidiously strewn this ancient path, we may finally bear witness that the "Buddhism" we know it today is essentially a derivative of Brāhmanical lore and that the entirety of its religious and philosophical outlook is but a grand unmitigated plagiarism of more remote Vedic and primordial conceptions. I will then return to sati and vipassanā and address their function as data accrual strategy and once and for all hermeneutically expose this specious twosome as masked marauding metaphors for Rgveda hymn I:103, with all due respect to the hair raising Harsha and his holy blistering jihādic arsenal.

I will further make an Indo-European cultural comparativistic scrutiny of the (s)ind(h)ic episteme of dharma, and then reconcile this with the early nous of the Persian-born Anaxagoras, with Aristotle's nous poetikos, and with the Unmoved Mover as god as brahman as quasi historical Buddha himself.

Endnotes

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[1] Gombrich asserts that in early Bauddha text, Sanskrit karman (Pāli kamma) becomes 'intention,' cetanā, a 'mind-emphasis word,' like cetas/ceto, 'thought/mind' (Gombrich 60). But it is odd that Gombrich gives not the precise Pāli for 'intention' in his discussion of the evolution of karman, which to my mind simply means a 'modification of thought,' 'mentation.' "I posit that 'intention' leads to kamma/'involvement,' is Gautama's answer to Brahmin ritualism,' (51) '[T]hat' (finite karman) 'does not remain there' (61).

[2] Griffith's work is considered by some to be a badly outdated English translation (Witzel 2001); yet still it is commonly used (Koenraad Elst 1999).

[3] "One side of me is in the sky," states a Rg Veda hymn, "[and] I have drawn the other down." In a similar intention, Gonda (1989: 17) cites RV I:103:1, which depicts Indra spanning heaven and earth.

[4] From bauddha, Sanskrit: borne in mind (not spoken out), relating to the intellect or to Buddha; Buddhist.

[5] The term 'thera' (elders) does not refer to just any 'elders,' but to a specific 'historical' or foundational group: the five hundred arahats who allegedly recited and collected the teachings of Gautama at Rājagŗha about one year after his death. This is stated, for example, in the fourth century C.E. Dīpavaµsa, the earliest chronicle from Sri Lanka that has been handed down to us. Compiled from early sources that are lost to us (Bechert 2003), the Dīpavaµsa is specifically concerns with school formation and affiliation, stating, 'the Council performed by the Theras is called the Theravāda' (Dīpavaµsa 4:8, therehi katasaµgaho theravādi 'ti vuccati). Interestingly, thera only appears twice in the entire early Pāli Buddhist scriptures themselves as uttered by the canon's chief protagonist. In both these instances, Gautama's 'thera' refers to his own two 'elders,' the gurus Ālāra-Kalama and Uddaka-Rāmaputra.

[6] Altarity in the senses of alter (another), alternate, alterity (altérité), and alter. See Mark Taylor 1987: xxviii-xxix.

[7] Nanamoli (1991: 726) translates this passage as "With dreadful thump the thunderbolt / Annihilates the rock... / Developed understanding , too, / Annihilates inverfterate / Defilements' netted overgrowth, / The source of every woe."

[8] A fruitful academic sub-plot is support of this thesis I will finally trace an epistemological tendril as it re-self-generates, extends, and disperses its salient metagenealogical dynamic amid the following ten milieux: (i.) Bauddhic sati, (ii) Patañjali's īśvara, together with (iii) kaivālya and its associated state of (iv.) kaivālya-mukti, but contrasted with (v) Sāmkhya's īśvara-variation and (vi) its consequent retreatment in Īśvarakrsna; (vii) Advaitic sākshin and (viii) the later fourteenth century Sāmkhya revival, which assumed a strong theistic character, (ix) the eventual baroque blend of Sāmkhya and Yoga where the former provided a metaphysical basis, and the later an ascetic research technology; and finally (x) Kant's custom fitted "extra layer" to account for the transcendental unity of apperception.

References

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Elst, Koenraad 1999. "The Vedic Evidence: The Vedic Corpus provides no evidence for the so called 'Aryan Invasion'." India Sword of Truth, 2001 Issue# 1999.00. March 29, 1999.

Glass, N. Robert 1998. A Review of Healing Deconstruction: Postmodern Thought in Buddhism and Christianity

Gombrich, Richard 2003. Interview by Kathleen Gregory in Ordinary Mind issue No. 21 http://www.ordinarymind.net/Interviews/interview_jan2003.htm

Gombrich, Richard F. 1996. How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings. London: Athlone.

Gonda, Jan 1989. The Indra Hymns of the Rg Veda. Leiden.

Gonda, Jan1959. Epithets in the RigVeda. S-Gravenhage.

Griffith, Ralph T.H. 1896. Trans. and ed. The Hymns of the Rg Veda.

Jurewicz, Joanna 2000. "Playing with Fire: The Pratityasamutpada from the Perspective of Vedic Thought," Journal of the Pali Text Society, vol.26, 77-103, 2000.

Jurewicz, Joanna 1993,1995. "The Rgveda 10, 129 – An Attempt of Interpretation," Cracow Indological Studies Vol.1: International Conference on Sanskrit and Related Studies September 23-26, 1993 (Proceedings), Cracow, Enigma Press, 1995, pp.141-49.

Loy , David 1998. Editor. Healing Deconstruction: Postmodern Thought in Buddhism and Christianity. American Academy of Religion, Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, no. 3. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998 http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/5/lomag981.html.

Magliola, Robert 1997. On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture. American Academy of Religion, Cultural Criticism, no. 3. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

Nanamoli, Bhikkhu 1991. The Path of Purification (Vishuddhimagga) by Bhanantacariya Buddhaghosa, fifth edition [1956]. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.

Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja 1984. The Buddhist Saints of the Forest & the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism & Millennial Buddhism. Cambridge University Press.

Witzel, Michael 2001. "Westward Ho! The Incredible Wanderlust of the Rgvedic Tribes Exposed by S. Talageri." A Review of: Shrikant G. Talageri, The Rigveda. A historical analysis). Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, Vol. 7, issue 2 (March 31).