[Buddha-l] Bangladesh Muslim lovefest

[Dan Lusthaus]

>> Vasubandhu's Vimsika propounds collective karma.
>
> I have read that text ten or twelve times and have never seen the passage 
> to which you refer. Could you supply the reference?

Pretty much the entire text is devoted to that theme, so there is no single 
reference. It might be instructive and fun to actually discuss Buddhist 
karma theory on this list, if the snide asides and digressions could be 
avoided. Let's see if that's possible.

A couple of preliminary comments before turning to the Vimsika (there are 
now quite a few attestations of the title as Vimsika, rather than Vimsatika, 
though Vimsatika has been the standard rendering for quite some time in 
modern studies).

First, at the moment we will be concerned with what Vasubandhu thinks, not 
what we personally subscribe to. While Richard has made it abundantly clear 
that he does not agree with either the Buddhist theories of karma, rebirth 
or two-truths, Buddhist authors like Vasubandhu clearly did, and it is their 
thinking, not Richard's, that is under discussion. Our energy should go 
toward determining what Vasubandhu thought, not (yet) how we feel about it.

Second, there is no Buddhist literature or discourse that fails to deal with 
persons and groups, esp. in the context of karma. Not only is the sangha a 
group -- which includes bhikkhus (one type of group) and bhikkhunis (another 
group), and according some male laypeople and female laypeople (two more 
groups), each of which have many subdivisions into additional groups. 
Mahayana literature is filled with references to followers of the "three 
vehicles" (triyana), viz. Sravkas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas, three 
more groups each with additional subdivisions into further groupings; the 
three are differentiated from other groups, such tirthikas (non-Buddhists) 
and Buddhas (note the plural, marking them as also a group). For Buddhists, 
one gains entry (and even birth) into these groups based on one's karma, and 
to be a member of such groups means to demonstrate certain behaviors, 
attitudes, proclivities, limitations, powers, actions, etc., in common with 
other members of that group. One could add as "groups" the five or six 
gatis -- hell-beings, pretas, animals, humans, (asuras) and devas as 
distinctive groupings, with subdivisions into additional groups, all part of 
the karmic samsaric cycle. There are also ethnic groups -- Sakyas, 
Licchivis, etc. -- who demonstrate characteristics and typical actions, 
including negative activities, which are prepondently associated with them, 
which characterize them as a group. In other words, Buddhists invariably and 
incessantly speak about groups which display characteristics peculiar to 
that group, and this is just as invariably tied to karma.

Third, Buddhists not only differentiate two truths -- a conventional, 
consensual way of looking at and understanding things, and an ultimately 
precise way of understanding things -- but into further divisions, such as 
"erroneous ideas" (mithya), "fictious and heuristic concepts" (prajnapti), 
conventional consensus which can be riddled with mithya and prajnapti or 
fairly accurate approximations of what is going on (vyavahara, samvrti), and 
ultimately precise (paramartha). There are further categories of this nature 
(most delineating types of linguistic and conceptual overlays to how we 
experience things, e.g., samketa, samjna, etc.). What is assigned to each of 
these categories, and those are defined and deployed precisely varied to 
some across different thinkers and schools. To speak of people or groups 
doing something or displaying certain characteristics is a matter of 
prajnapti and samvrti. Breaking a prajnapti down into the causal components 
which it heuristically represents is to shift to paramarthic discourse. For 
some Buddhists (certain types of madhyamikas particularly), "paramarthic 
discourse" is an oxymoron -- for them, paramartha is radically 
non-linguistic, non-conceptual, and hence does not entail an "accurate, 
precise" description of anything, and hence no discourse at all. Vasubandhu 
and Dharmakirti were not that sort of madhyamika; for them, accurate causal 
descriptions could be paramarthic.

That said, let's turn to the Vimsika. As mentioned, collective karma is one 
of its major underlying themes of Vimsika, so laying out a comprehensive 
exposition would go far beyond what is reasonable for an email message, so I 
will give some basic examples, and trust that the rest will be obvious to 
anyone reading the text for themselves afterward.

Let's start with one of the key observations Vasubandhu makes (drawn from 
earlier Buddhist literature). Something is flowing: When the hell denizen 
looks, he sees a river of fire; pretas see a stream of pus, blood, and other 
gross things; humans (and animals) see a river of water; devas see a river 
of ambrosia (amrta). Each sees according to the propensities and body-types, 
sensory capacities, etc. instilled by karma. Vasubandhu's point goes 
further. Each group forms by individuals seeking out like-minded individuals 
to reinforce and concur with their own propensities. We humans think the 
river is really water while the others are misperceiving that water as fire, 
pus, amrta, etc. But that is just another proclivity. Something is flowing 
there (this is not metaphysical idealism), but each group sees it the way 
they have become conditioned to see it. Having done similar things in the 
past, in past lives, they now congregate with others who did likewise, 
finding communal, consensual reality amongst themselves. Translated into a 
social setting, people of certain proclivities join racist groups, based on 
some shared type of experience, and feel comfort and community among their 
likeminded peers who help reinforce their racist vision is the true vision.

The lower down on the karmic cosmological scale, the more projection and 
delusion is involved. Hell denizens are tortured by hell-guardians. 
Hell-guardians take sadistic delight in torturing them. But, according to 
Buddhist karmic theory, the place of rebirth is recompense for actions in 
previous lives, and one is born into one of the hells due to bad karma in 
order to suffer. Hell-guardians taking delight in their sadism is a non 
sequitur, hence, they could not have been born into a hell to enjoy 
themselves, and so, Vasubandhu (drawing on arguments already found in the 
Kathavatthu) concludes they are unreal, they don't exist, they are communal 
projections by the hell denizens themselves, a self-torture they inflict on 
themselves. This is a serious insight into the nature of suffering -- much 
of it is delusional and self-inflicted, and communal, just more explicitly 
so in the hells. (At one time I read Vasubandhu as implying that hell itself 
was only a paranoid delusion, but the subsequent commentarial tradition has 
convinced me that was not his intention; or at least that is not how his 
followers interpreted him.)

Pretas, as a group, see pus, blood, piss and shit, where humans see 
attractive edible food. Yet Buddhists lay out food for pretas on an annual 
holiday, and then all the obstacles that keep them perpetually hungry but 
repulsed are temporarily suspended so that they can enjoy the food. Does 
that mean that they are misperceiving water-streams as pus-streams the rest 
of the time? Perhaps, but not necessarily. Instead of pretas, let's 
"naturalize" the example and compare human perceptions to those of flies (my 
favorite scatological example). A warm fresh turd by the side of the road 
repulses most (healthy) humans; flies consider it lunch (and are glad we 
don't share their sense of gourmet vittles). Like the flowing river, some 
'thing' (vastu) is there, but based on the group karma, different groups 
experience and interact with it differently, VERY differently. For 
Vasubandhu, the "perspectivism" involved here is only a small part of the 
story. The collective karma is actually his main point.

Shifted to more paramarthic discourse, this is explained by Vasubandhu, in 
part, by seed theory (those are his causally efficacious dharmas), which he 
distinguishes as own-seeds and seeds-from-others. The root of communal karma 
is intersubjective influence -- Buddha's discourse, e.g., providing positive 
influences (cf. Asanga's notion of sruta-vasana undoing the alaya-vijnana in 
the first ch. of Mahayanasamgraha), while we each influence, and thus share 
in the karma of each other, and help formulate others' karma as well as our 
own. Racists reinforce each other, as do Quakers, Buddhists, and Muslims. 
The means each takes to disrupt interference with that reinforcement also 
differs from group to group, e.g., on tolerating free speech.(*)

In the last verses he gives some examples (drawn from Buddhist lit.) of the 
awesome extent of such power, not only over the thinking of others, but over 
the physical world as well.

Dan

(*) "France abolished the offence of blasphemy in 1791."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France