Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the philosophical investigations and systems of rational inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in ancient India following the parinirvāṇa of Gautama Buddha (c. 5th century BCE), as well as the further developments which followed the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia.
Buddhism combines both philosophical reasoning and the practice of meditation.Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as philosophy, 2007, p. 6 The Buddhist religion presents a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation; and with the expansion of early Buddhism from ancient India to Sri Lanka and subsequently to East Asia and Southeast Asia, Buddhist thinkers have covered topics as varied as cosmology, ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ontology, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of time, and soteriology in their analysis of these paths.
Pre-sectarian Buddhism was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs (including the mind), and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions, refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation.David Kalupahana, Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. The University Press of Hawaii, 1975, p. 70. However, he was also claimed to have affirmed theories with metaphysical implications, such as dependent arising, karma, and rebirth.
Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism, as well as between representative thinkers of Buddhist schools and Hindu or Jain philosophers. These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various early Buddhist schools of Abhidharma, the Mahāyāna movement, and scholastic traditions such as Prajñāpāramitā, Sarvāstivāda, Mādhyamaka, Sautrāntika, Vaibhāṣika, Buddha-nature, Yogācāra, and more. One recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been the desire to find a Middle Way between philosophical views seen as extreme.David Kalupahana, Mulamadhyamakakarika of Nagarjuna. Motilal Banarsidass, 2006, p. 1.
Historical phases of Buddhist philosophy
Edward Conze splits the development of Indian Buddhist philosophy into three phases:Conze, Edward. Buddhist thought in India: Three phases of Buddhist philosophy. Vol. 4. Routledge, 2013.
The phase of the pre-sectarian Buddhist doctrines derived from oral traditions that originated during the life of Gautama Buddha, and are common to all later schools of Buddhism. The second phase concerns non-Mahāyāna "scholastic" Buddhism, as evident in the Abhidharma texts beginning in the 3rd century BCE, that feature scholastic reworking and schematic classification of material in the early Buddhist texts. The Abhidhamma philosophy of the Theravāda school belongs to this phase. The third phase concerns Mahāyāna Buddhism, beginning in the late first century CE. This movement emphasizes the path of a bodhisattva and includes various schools of thought, such as Prajñāpāramitā, Mādhyamaka, Sautrāntika, Buddha-nature, and Yogācāra.
Various elements of these three phases are incorporated and/or further developed in the philosophy and worldview of the various sects of Buddhism that then emerged.
Philosophical orientation
Buddhism is an Indian religion and dhārma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs, and spiritual practices based on teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha (5th century BCE), but diversified since then in a wide variety of schools and traditions. Buddhism originated in ancient India, from where the Buddhadhārma spread from the northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent throughout Central Asia, East Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and Maritime Southeast Asia. Philosophy in ancient India was aimed primarily at spiritual liberation and had soteriological goals. In his study of the Mādhyamaka and Sautrāntika schools of Buddhist philosophy in ancient India, Peter Deller Santina writes:Santina, Peter Della. Madhyamaka Schools in India: A Study of the Madhyamaka Philosophy and of the Division of the System into the Prasangika and Svatantrika Schools. 2008. p. 31
For the Indian Buddhist philosophers, the teachings of Gautama Buddha were not meant to be taken on faith alone, but to be confirmed by logical analysis and inquiry (pramāṇa) of the world. The early Buddhist texts mention that a person becomes a follower of the Buddha's teachings after having pondered them over with wisdom (jñana) and the gradual training also requires that a disciple "investigate" (upaparikkhati) and "scrutinize" (tuleti) the teachings. The Buddha also expected his disciples to approach him as a teacher in a critical fashion and scrutinize his actions and words, as shown in the Vīmaṃsaka Sutta.
Some Buddhist thinkers even argued that systems of rational reflection and philosophical analysis were a central practice which was necessary for the attainment of insight during meditation. Thus, Mahāyāna philosophers like Prajñakaragupta argue that one is not a yogi "merely because of meditation"; rather, one must meditate, listen to the teachings, and understand them by "reflecting through rational inquiry" (yukti-cintāmaya). Only through this method, which combined rational reflection and the practice of meditation, will the wisdom that leads to enlightenment arise.Shinya Moriyama. "Prajñākaragupta on Yogic Perception and the Buddha's Omniscience A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkāra ad Pramāṇavārttika III 281-286, 2023", Journal of Prajnakaragupta Studies 3.
The Buddha and early Buddhism
Buddhism is devoted primarily to awakening or enlightenment (bodhi), Nirvāṇa ("blowing out"), and liberation (vimokṣa) from all causes of suffering (duḥkha) due to the existence of sentient beings in saṃsāra (the cycle of compulsory birth, death, and rebirth) through the threefold trainings (ethical conduct, meditative absorption, and wisdom). Classical Indian Buddhism emphasized the importance of the individual's self-cultivation (through numerous spiritual practices like keeping ethical precepts, Buddhist meditation, and worship) in the process of liberation from the defilements which keep us bound to the cycle of rebirth. According to the standard Buddhist scholastic understanding, liberation arises when the proper spiritual qualities (dharmas) are cultivated and when the mind has been purified of its attachment to fetters and hindrances that produce unwholesome mental factors (various called defilements, poisons, or fluxes).
The Buddha
Scholarly opinion varies as to whether Gautama Buddha himself was engaged in philosophical inquiry.Smith, Douglass, and Justin Whitaker. "Reading the Buddha as a Philosopher." Philosophy East and West 66, no. 2 (2016): pp. 515–538. Siddartha Gautama (c. 5th century BCE) was a north Indian Śramaṇa (wandering ascetic), whose teachings are preserved in the Pāli Nikayas and in the Āgamas as well as in other surviving fragmentary textual collections, collectively known as the early Buddhist texts. Dating these texts is difficult, and there is disagreement on how much of this material goes back to a single religious founder. While the focus of the Buddha's teachings is about attaining the highest good of nirvāṇa, they also contain an analysis of the source of human suffering (duḥkha), the nature of personal identity (ātman), and the process of acquiring knowledge (prajña) about the world.
The Middle Way
The Buddha defined his teaching as "the Middle Way" (Pāli: majjhimāpaṭipadā). In the Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra, this is used to refer to the fact that his teachings steer a middle course between the extremes of asceticism and bodily denial (as practiced by the Jains and other Indian ascetic groups) and sensual hedonism or indulgence. Many Śramaṇa ascetics of the Buddha's time placed much emphasis on a denial of the body, using practices such as fasting, to liberate the mind from the body. Gautama Buddha, however, realized that the mind was embodied and causally dependent on the body, and therefore that a malnourished body did not allow the mind to be trained and developed.Panjvani, Cyrus; Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach (2013), p. 29 Thus, Buddhism's main concern is not with luxury or poverty, but instead with the human response to circumstances.Swearer, Donald K. Ethics, wealth, and salvation: A study in Buddhist social ethics. Edited by Russell F. Sizemore. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990. (from the introduction)
Another related teaching of the historical Buddha is "the teaching through the middle" (majjhena dhammaṃ desana), which claims to be a metaphysical middle path between the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism, as well as the extremes of existence and non-existence.Wallis, Glenn (2007) Basic Teachings of the Buddha: A New Translation and Compilation, With a Guide to Reading the Texts, p. 114.See: Kaccānagotta Sutta SN 12.15 (SN ii 16), translated by Bhikkhu Sujato This idea would become central to later Buddhist metaphysics, as all Buddhist philosophies would claim to steer a metaphysical middle course.
Basic teachings
Apart from the middle way, certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout these early Buddhist texts, so older studies by various scholars conclude that the Buddha must at least have taught some of these key teachings:Mitchell, Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 34 and table of contents The Four Noble Truths, which provide an analysis of the cause of suffering (duḥkha) The Noble Eightfold Path, which illustrate the path to spiritual liberation (mokṣa) The four dhyānas (meditations) The three marks of existence, three characteristics which apply to all phenomena and which are: suffering (duḥkha), impermanence (anicca), and non-self (anattā) The five aggregates of clinging (skandhā), which provide an analysis of personal identity and physical existence Dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), a complex doctrine which analyzes the how living beings come to be and how they are conditioned by various psycho-physical processes Karma and rebirth, actions which lead to a new existence after death, in an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (saṃsāra) Nirvāṇa, the ultimate soteriological goal which leads to the cessation of all suffering
According to N. Ross Reat, all of these doctrines are shared by the Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism and the Śālistamba Sūtra belonging to the Mahāsāṃghika school.Reat, Noble Ross. "The Historical Buddha and his Teachings". In: Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy. Ed. by Potter, Karl H. Vol. VII: Abhidharma Buddhism to 150 AD. Motilal Banarsidass, 1996, pp. 28, 33, 37, 41, 43, 48. A recent study by Bhikkhu Analayo concludes that the Theravādin Majjhima Nikāya and the Sarvāstivādin Madhyama Āgama contain mostly the same major Buddhist doctrines.Analayo (2011). A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya. Dharma Drum Academic Publisher. p. 891. Richard G. Salomon, in his study of the Gandhāran Buddhist texts (which are the earliest manuscripts containing discourses attributed to Gautama Buddha), has confirmed that their teachings are "consistent with non-Mahayana Buddhism, which survives today in the Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but which in ancient times was represented by eighteen separate schools."Salomon, Richard (20 January 2020). "How the Gandharan Manuscripts Change Buddhist History". lionsroar.com. Retrieved 21 January 2020.