Reflections on Nirvana as Taught in the Martsang Lam Rim

The goal of Buddhist practice is to obtain an irreversible state that is a liberation from the cyclical existence of samsara. However, the nature of this final state of nirvana is posited in different ways by the various philosophical schools. In this essay, we will briefly consider the perspectives of nirvana given by the four primary schools of Buddhism, being the two Hinayana schools – the Vaibhashika and the Sautrantika – and of the two Mahayana schools – the Yogachara and the Madhyamaka. We will consider how these differences are rooted in the school’s ontological and soteriological frameworks. However, we will also seek to consider these perspectives of nirvana holistically, much like illuminating an object from all directions in order to see it clearly. To this end, we will seek to show how all perspectives are perfectly encapsulated within the Mahayana framework of the five wisdoms of the Buddhas. 

The basic premise of all Buddhist schools is that suffering arises due to afflicted states of mind and the karmic propensities that they produce. Equally, all schools agree that the root of these afflictions is the tendency to grasp at a permanent and independent self and therefore, that there is a discrepancy between the appearance of reality and its true underlying nature. The goal of salvation is to reconcile this inconsistency by realising selflessness and obtaining nirvana. There are however important differences in how the schools posit the true nature of reality, the path to be followed, and the experience of nirvana to be gained. Although these differences are subtle, the implications are profound.

The primary difference between the two vehicles of Hinayana and Mahayana is the motivation of their proponents for obtaining the state of nirvana. For the Hinayana schools, the motivation is to achieve liberation from personal suffering, and this means that the resulting nirvana is a transcendent state that is disconnected from the mundane existence of samsara. For the Mahayana schools, the motivation is to obtain a state of full enlightenment for the purpose of guiding all sentient beings to Buddhahood. This requires that after enlightenment a Buddha is able to manifest in samsara to help others, and therefore nirvana and samsara cannot be separated. 

This difference in goal between personal liberation and full enlightenment is based on the divergent ontologies of the schools. Whilst the Hinayana schools reject the existence of a permanent and separate self, they still posit to various degrees that there is an objectively existing material reality. The Mahayana schools believe that Hinayana proponents are unable to achieve full Buddhahood, because even though they reject the selflessness of persons, they still grasp at a subtle substrate of physical existence. The implication is that the nirvana envisaged by the Hinayana schools is not the final nirvana, but only a half-way house, where coarse grasping has been removed, but subtle tendencies remain. 

The Hinayana schools posit that this truly existing substrate of reality consists of ‘dharmas’, which are the building blocks of mind and matter. The Vaibhashika school takes the most materialistic standing and defines these building blocks as including indivisible particles of matter, in much the same way as the Greek and Indian atomists, as well as indivisible moments of consciousness, being the briefest moments of the continuum of mind. The idea is that reality is a composite of these fundamental elements that are permanent and indivisible. 

In this view, if you take a gross object of form and repetitively break it down into parts, then eventually you reach a base level of reality comprising fundamental particles of matter. For the Vaibhashikas, the gross objects made of these particles are only conceptual wholes that are erroneously imputed upon the particles. Therefore, from a soteriological perspective the implication is that we need to remove conceptual elaborations to perceive directly a final material reality. In particular, the goal is to realise that the concept of selfhood is an imputation, and therefore to perceive that the self is empty of permanence, wholeness and indivisibility. In this context, nirvana is considered to be a foundational and uncompounded state, whereby all elaborations and defilements have ceased. Even though the mind and body are extinguished, nirvana is still posited to be an eternal and truly existing reality; a residual in which there is no potential for suffering, because the causes have been eliminated.

The Sautrantika school maintains a broadly materialistic perspective but shifts the emphasis to phenomenalism. In this view, true existence is defined in relation to direct sensorial perception. Those objects that are directly and validly perceived with the physical senses are considered to be real, whereas those objects that are mental images or elaborations are considered to be imaginary. The definition of a real object is one that is specifically characterised, meaning that it has a definite time, location and nature, and one that is able to perform a function, and in particular to be the cause for a moment of perception. For example, for a moment of visual perception, it is the shape and colour of an object in the first moment, which acts as the cause for perceiving the object in the next moment. This is in comparison to thought or mental objects, which are generally characterised, unable to perform a function and therefore considered to be unreal. 

This ontology is still materialistic in that form takes primacy over consciousness, but it is defined in relation to perception, such that gross objects may be considered to be real and not just the particles of which they are comprised[1]. The Sautrantika posit that all of the characteristics of sensory objects are available for cognition, including very subtle qualities such as impermanence, however due to ignorance we are unable to fully ascertain them. The basic idea is that when we perceive an object, even though its true reality is available, our perception is confused by a mental overlay of thoughts and projections that prohibit us from cognising the object clearly. 

In a similar manner to the Vaibhashikas, the implication is that there is an underlying and truly existing reality, however it is primarily phenomenological in nature. We do not cognise it correctly due to the interference and overlay of mental processes upon the sensorial. In particular, selfhood is a mental elaboration that is projected upon the aggregates and this misperception is the cause of the arising of afflictions. Therefore, the path of liberation is to extinguish all mental elaborations to be able to perceive reality directly, ascertaining all of its subtle attributes without the mediation of thoughts and concepts. Unlike the Vaibhashika however, the Sautrantika do not pose any truly existing or material state of nirvana, it is merely considered to be a cessation of all manifestations, without any positive counterpart.  

These Hinayana conceptions of nirvana are based on correct perception of an objectively existing reality, without grasping at mental elaborations in general, and the concept of independent selfhood in particular. The resulting state of nirvana is posited to be a state of peace, either as a truly existing uncompounded residual in the case of the Vaibhashikas, or as an absence of manifestations in the case of the Sautrantikas. In either case, it is a state of inactivity and vacuity. From a Mahayana perspective, this is not the final state of enlightenment as it is devoid of perfect wisdom and compassion.

The idealism of Yogachara is close to the opposite of the realism of the Hinayana. Even though the Sautrantikas posit that truly existing phenomena can be known through direct perception, they do not suggest that this perception is through a direct meeting of mind and matter. The Sautrantikas explain the process of visual perception as the appearance of a mental representation of the object in the mind, much like a reflection in a mirror. Even though the representation of the object is a separate entity from the object itself, it is considered to be an exact and unmistaken replica of the externally existing object. From the Yogachara perspective, this view has many inconsistencies. They question that if all that can be known to consciousness is mental objects, even if they are posited as reflections, then there is no reason to claim an independently existing physical reality at all. This is the basic premise of idealism; as there is no mechanism to know physical objects other than through the mental domain, to speak of these objects as independent of mind is to speak of an existence that can never be known. 

This idealist perspective turns the reality of the Sautrantikas on its head. For the Yogachara it is the very proposition that physical objects have an independent existence that is delusional and unreal. The Yogacharas accept that objects are perceived as mental images, however, whereas the Sautrantikas posit that the object is the cause for perception, the Yogacharas posit that both the mental image of the object and the perception of the subject arise from the same causal flow of karmic imprints. For such proponents, the separation of subject and object is merely superimposed by ignorance. The monism of Yogachara non-dualism is therefore in stark contrast to the plurality of the dharmas of the Hinayana schools.

The consequence of this for nirvana is equally radical. Whereas the Hinayana schools seeks to extinguish mental elaborations to perceive a truly existing physical substratum, the Yogachara practitioner aims to realise the non-duality of subject and object to achieve a base state of undifferentiated mind. This ground state of mind is without attribute, without perception, without thought and without discrimination. Whilst this nirvana is the opposite of the extinguishment of mind of the Hinayana schools, on face value it still leads to a state of non-discrimination and non-abiding. Even though the Yogachara posit that this non-dual mind encompasses the union of wisdom and compassion, it raises the difficulty of how from within this state a Buddha can bring about benefit to sentient beings within the duality of samsara.

The Madhyamaka[2] school is a rejection of both realism and idealism. To follow either of these philosophies to their logical consequences results in a vacuity of either eternal matter or eternal mind. For the Madhyamaka, the very idea of an ultimate substratum is rejected, as an extreme view of true existence that creates the basis for the suffering of mental grasping.

The Madhyamaka describe reality in terms of two truths. The conventional truth is that which exists from the perspective of ordinary cognition using the accepted worldly conventions. From this perspective, it is meaningless to talk of physical objects as non-existent because they are the phenomena of everyday reality that are both useful and accepted. However, the ultimate truth is that even though those objects appear, and we can make use of them, they lack any independent or inherent existence. From this perspective, all phenomena are both empty and impermanent. This model of reality is described as ‘the middle way’ as it avoids the philosophical extremes of eternalism and nihilism. It is not nihilistic, because it accepts the conventional existence of phenomena as dependently arisen, but it is not eternalistic, because it rejects the ultimate existence of phenomena as having any true substance or objective reality. 

From an epistemological perspective, the Madhyamaka accept direct perception as valid conventionally, but not ultimately[3]. Whereas the root of perception is material phenomena for the Sautrantika and the casual flow of mind for Yogachara; the Madhyamaka do not afford either superiority, but rather consider perception to be the relational co-emergence of moments of matter and mind. For the Madhyamaka, this process is only efficacious because both matter and mind are impermanent phenomena that lack any inherent essence. If either one was to be afforded superior ontological status, then from the Madhyamaka perceptive they would cease to be effective and would fall into the traps of either nihilism or eternalism. If matter contains a permanent essence, it cannot be the cause for perception, because it is unable to affect the changes that are the very hallmark of cognition. Further, if mind is considered to be a base reality, then there is nothing to be known other than mind, and mind cannot know itself without ensuing reflexive contradictions. In either case, the final state is vacuous and inanimate.

The Madhyamaka philosophy therefore offers an alternative viewpoint of enlightenment. 

This is the union of the conventional perspective that sees phenomena as dependently arisen, and the ultimate perspective that perceives phenomena as empty. As one progresses towards Buddhahood, there is an iteration between the emptiness experienced in meditative equipoise and the illusion-like appearance of subsequent attainment. Until one realises the dependent nature of emptiness, there remains a subtle grasping at emptiness in meditative equipoise. This grasping is a tendency towards nihilism, in a similar way to the final mind of Yogachara. Likewise, until one realises the emptiness of dependent arising, there remains a subtle grasping at phenomena in subsequent attainment. This grasping is a tendency towards the eternalism, in a similar manner to the nirvana of the Hinayana schools. It is the final realisation of the equivalence of the dependence of emptiness on one hand, and the emptiness of dependent arising on the other, that is the inseparability of meditative equipoise and subsequent attainment and the final state of the Madhyamaka.

This final nirvana is established through the five wisdoms of the Buddhas, which are the encapsulation of all perspectives. The wisdom of individual investigation ascertains the plurality of existence without grasping, both conventional and ultimate, like the direct perception of the Hinayana schools. Mirror-like wisdom perceives the non-duality of subject and object, like the inseparability of objects and their reflections on the surface of a mirror, just as the foundational mind of the Yogachara. The wisdom of Dharmadhatu knows the perfection of suchness, without grasping at plurality or monism, like the middle way of the Madhyamaka. The wisdom of equality sees clearly the undifferentiated nature of emptiness as the synthesis of all Buddhist views. The all-accomplishing wisdom effortlessly and spontaneously works for the benefit of sentient beings, manifesting in all directions, through ultimate compassion and wisdom.

These five pristine cognitions, as the final enlightened state, are able to interact with conventional reality through perfect discernment of all objects of perception, and in this way are effective at bringing benefit to all sentient beings. However, they are concurrently ultimate cognitions that realise the emptiness of self and phenomena and are therefore completely stainless, without even the tendencies towards elaboration and grasping. This is the final union of samsara and nirvana.

[1] There are different views amongst the Sautrantika sub-schools, with some only positing partless particles as real and others accepting gross objects as real.

[2] There are different Madhyamaka sub-schools, in this essay we refer to the Prasangika-Madhyamaka.

[3] There is much debate over this within the school. Candrakirti’s posits that even conventional perception is faulty, whereas Bhavaviveka asserts that phenomena exist inherently conventionally, but are not established ultimately.

Article author: Julian McIntyre

Martsang Lam Rim Student

Source: Martsang Lam Rim written by His Holiness Gangri Karma Rinpoche.