Creation in Buddhism

Preprint only. If you would like to cite this chapter please refer to the final, published version. Simon Oliver: The Oxford Handbook of Creation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, forthcoming. “Creation in Buddhism” Jan Westerhoff Abstract: Buddhism does not assume the existence of a creator god, and so it might seem as if the question of creation, of how and why the world came into existence was not of great interest for Buddhist thinkers. Nevertheless, questions of the origin of the world become important in the Buddhist context, not so much when investigating how the world came into existence, but when investigating how it can be brought out of existence, i.e. how one can escape from the circle of birth and death that constitutes cyclic existence in order to become enlightened. If the aim of the Buddhist path is the dissolution of the world of rebirth in which we live, some account must be given of what keeps this world in existence, so that a way of removing whatever this is can be found. In the context of this discussion we will discuss how some key Buddhist concepts (such as causation, karma, dependent origination, ontological anti-foundationalism, and the storehouse consciousness) relate to the origin of the world, and what role they play in its eventual dissolution when enlightenment is obtained. 0. Introduction What is the Buddhist view of creation? If creation is understood as a process generating the world brought about by a creator god it is evident that the discourses of the historical Buddha as preserved in the Pāli canon show him to be highly critical of various facets of this idea.1 The Buddha fears that any assumption of the happiness or suffering humans experience being the responsibility of a divine creator that made it so (issara-nimmāna-hetu)2 is likely to lead to a fatalistic 1 See Nārada Mahāthera 1991: 257-260. “Whatever this person experiences — whether pleasure, pain, or neither-pain-nor-pleasure — all that is caused by God’s creative activity” (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2012: 267). yaṃ kiñcāyaṃ purisapuggalo paṭisaṃvedeti sukhaṃ vā 2 indulgence in immoral actions.3 Moreover, the existence of pain and suffering reflects badly on the divine creator that ordained the world in this way.4 Elsewhere the Buddha raises the possibility that even a being who regards himself as a creator god might be mistaken in doing so. In the Brahmajāla-sutta, a discourse enumerating 62 mistaken views about the past and the future the Buddha discusses a man recalling a previous life spent in the presence of Brahmā, considered by all beings to be their creator.5 In the present life this person consequently believes in an eternal Brahmā, creator of the man himself as well as of all other beings. The Buddha then describes how the theistic creation story underlying this, based on the description of creation found in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad could have arisen from a mistake Brahmā himself made in assessing the situation.6 According to the Buddha, Brahmā was the first being arising (due to the forces of karmic conditioning) in an otherwise empty world. He wished for company and subsequently (for unrelated karmic reasons) other beings started being reborn in this world. Naturally, Brahmā believed he had created them, and the subsequently arisen beings believe this as well. Hence the conviction of the man recalling his previous life, believing that Brahmā is the creator of all beings and has always existed. This alternative explanation of the origin of the upaniṣadic creation story presented by the Buddha is meant to undermine its veracity. According to his interpretation he theistic account is not an accurate description of how things came to be, but the result of a mistake perpetrated by the human and divine agents involved. Later Buddhist scholastic literature is hardly more sympathetic to the concept of a creator god7 and we find a variety of arguments that try to refute its existence by dukkhaṃ vā, adukkhamasukhaṃ vā, sabbaṃ taṃ issaranimmāṇahetū'ti, Titthāyatanasutta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3: 61, PTS A i 173. 3 “Then I say to them: ‘In such a case, it is due to God’s creative activity that you might destroy life, take what is not given, indulge in sexual activity, speak falsehood, utter divisive speech, speak harshly, indulge in idle chatter, that you might be full of longing, have a mind of ill will, and hold wrong view.’ Those who fall back on God’s creative activity as the essential truth have no desire [to do] what should be done and [to avoid doing] what should not be done, nor do they make any effort in this respect.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2012: 267). tyāhaṃ evaṃ vadāmi: tena hāyasmanto pāṇātipātino bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu adinnādāyino bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, abrahmacārino bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetūti, musāvādino bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, pisunavācā bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, pharusavācā bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, samphappalāpino bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, abhijjhāluno bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu, byāpannacittā bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu. Micchādiṭṭhikā bhavissanti issaranimmāṇahetu. Issaranimmāṇaṃ kho pana bhikkhave sārato paccāgacchataṃ na hoti chando vā vāyāmo vā, idaṃ vā karaṇīyaṃ idaṃ vā akaraṇīyanti. Titthāyatanasutta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3: 61, PTS A i 174. 4 In reference to the suffering felt through the ascetic practices of the Jains the Buddha points out that “[i]f the pleasure and pain that beings feel are caused by the creative act of a Supreme God, then the Nigaṇṭhas surely must have been created by an evil Supreme God, since they now feel such painful, racking, piercing feelings.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2001: 832-833), sace bhikkhave, sattā issaranimmāṇahetu sukhadukkhaṃ paṭisaṃvedenti, addhā bhikkhave, nigaṇṭhā pāpakena issarena nimmitā, yaṃ etarahi evarūpā dukkhā tippā kaṭukā vedanā vediyanti, Devadahasutta, Majjhima Nikāya 101, PTS M ii 222. See also Bhikkhu Anālayo 2011: 587, note 10. 5 Bhikkhu Bodhi 2007: 66-67. 6 Bhikkhu Bodhi 2007: 20-21; Bhikkhu Anālayo 2010: 27-28. 7 For a survey of Buddhist critiques of different Indian conceptions of a creator god see Krasser 2002, Steinkellner 2006. thinkers such as Nāgārjuna,8 Bhāvya,9 Śāntideva,10 and Dharmakīrti.11 Given these largely negative positions on the existence of a creator god, it is necessary to look at the Buddhist materials with a wider understanding of creation. If we conceive of creation simply as a process generating the world, set in motion by a creator god, it might appear as if the major Buddhist contribution to this debate is denying its central premiss, namely the existence of such a god. But such an approach would be short-sighted. If we investigate the Buddhist texts with a wider, more general view that takes the problem of creation as a challenge to provide an account of how the world around has come to be, we realize that the different Buddhist schools of thought have come up with a variety of sophisticated, and interestingly diverse accounts of creation. Given Buddhism’s aim as providing a way to the liberation from suffering which suffuses all existential states, the obvious place to look for when searching for a Buddhist account of how the world came to be is the Second Noble Truth: the truth of the origin of suffering. 1. The origin of the world in early Buddhism: causation, karma, and dependent origination In order to understand the Buddha’s explication of the Second Noble Truth in this context we need to keep in mind three central notions: causation, karma, and dependent origination. Causation her refers to causal processes that occur in the natural world, such as a sprout arising from a seed. Karma (or, as we might also want to put it, karmic causality) crucially involves intentions,12 and it establishes a connection between the nature of the intention generated by an agent, and the kind of hedonic states subsequently experienced by the same agent. Neither of these two forms of causality is regarded by Buddhists as being well-founded, that is, neither natural nor karmic causality starts with some kind of first cause to which all later effects can eventually be traced. The primary reason for this is that all causality forms part of the network of dependent origination. A very general account of dependent origination is provided by the statement that “when this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.”13 Things therefore do not arise at random, but as the product of specific conditions that brought them about. Once arisen, they are sustained by the presence of 8 Bodhicittavivaraṇa 7-9, Lindtner 1982: 186-189. See also the Īśvarakartṛtvanirākṛti (Gupta 1975, 1-11, Chemparathy 1968-1969), though Lindtner (1982: 15-16) contends that this text is “most probably not genuine”. 9 Madhyamakahṛdaya 3: 215-223, 9: 95-119, Lindtner 1999: 64-74. 10 Bodhicaryāvatāra 9:118-125, Crosby/Skilton 1995: 127-128. 11 Pramāṇaviniścaya 2, 29, 15-24, Yoshimizu 1999: 234-235. See also Jackson 1986. 12 “It is volition, bhikkhus, that I call kamma. For having willed, one acts by body, speech, or mind.” (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2012: 963), cetanāhaṃ bhikkhave kammaṃ vadāmi, cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti kāyena vācāya manasā. Nibbedhikasutta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 6:63, PTS A ii 415. 13 Bhikkhu Bodhi 2000: 552, imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti. imassuppādā idaṃ uppajjati. imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti. Imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati, Nidānasaṃyutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 2:21, PTS S ii 28. particular conditions. When the specific conditions are absent, the things in question will not arise, and in the absence of sustaining conditions the things that already have arisen will cease. More specifically, dependent origination is explained as consisting of twelve links (nidāna) sometimes described as linked into a process that takes place across three lifetimes. In a previous lifetime (links 1-2) a moment of ignorance (1. avijja)14 caused a conditioning force (2. sankhāra). Ignorance in the Buddhist context is not to be understood as simply not knowing something, but as the active entertainment of wrong ideas about some subject-matter (as one might, for example, misconstrue a rope for a snake at dusk), especially the erroneous assumption of the existence of a substantial self. Assuming the existence of such a self, conditioning forces are produced in this life (links 3-10), which include intentions (cetana), the source of karmic efficacy. These conditioning forces bring about the consciousness (3. viññāṇa) of the present life (links 3-10), which is reborn in a human body with its physical and mental attributes (4. nāma-rūpa). This body will have six sense faculties (5. saḷāyātana, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, as well as awareness of its own mental states, classified in Buddhist psychology as a sense faculty as well). Once the six sense faculties are in place, contact (6. phassa) between a sense-faculty and its object that generates a mental cognition of the object can occur. This in turn leads to feeling (7. vedanā) which can take the form of three hedonic tones: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Pleasant feelings then give rise to a craving (8. tanḥā) for more of such experiences, resulting in grasping (9. upādāṇa), which assists in the actualization of the craving, for example by producing desires for specific phenomena, such as attractive shapes and sounds. This actualizes existence (10. bhava), which, in the next life (links 11-12) brings about the birth (11. jāti) in a specific realm of rebirth where it again experiences old age and death (12. jāra-maraṇa), after which the cycle can begin again. The twelve links of dependent origination can be read in two ways. In the order of origination (anuloma) from ignorance to old age and death they describe the process of the creation of cyclic existence beginning with ignorance, and thereby serve as an explication of the Second Noble Truth, the truth of the origin of suffering. In the order of cessation (paṭiloma) they can be seen as the description of a process in which each link is destroyed once its predecessor is destroyed, all the way back to the destruction of ignorance. As such it serves as an explanation of the Third Noble Truth, the truth of the cessation of suffering. This point is nicely summarized in two verses from Nāgārjuna’s Yuktiṣaṣṭikā where he points out that: The Buddhas have said that the world is conditioned by ignorance, therefore, how is it not reasonable that this world is a mental construction? 14 It might be worth mentioning here that what is meant here by ignorance is a specific moment of unsystematic attention (ayoniśimanaskāra) which, via its mistaken ascriptions of substantial existence to things that in fact lack them brings about a conditioning force. Another form of ignorance that plays a major role in Buddhist theories of why things are the way they are is beginningless ignorance, which is not a specific mind-moment but forms the underlying condition of the entire structure of the twelve limbs. (See also Eckel/Thatamanil 2001). When ignorance ceases, how is it not clear that that which has stopped was imagined by ignorance?15 That the world (loka, ‘jig rten) is created by the twelve links of dependent origination, beginning with ignorance means that it is not to be regarded in any way as a selfstanding entity, but as a conceptualization (vikalpa, rnam rtog). This then has immediate consequences in the context of Buddhist soteriology, since it means that the eradication of ignorance will not somehow leave the world behind, and merely remove the practitioner from it, but leads to the complete removal of the world of cyclic existence, since its primary cause has been removed. Even though ignorance (avijja) is given as the first link in the chain of dependent origination, it should not be understood as a first cause in the creation of saṃsāra. The chain of dependent origination is a cyclical succession, not a linear progression, and in different contexts other members of the chain are given special emphasis.16 What this shows is that explanations of dependent origination in terms of a first member play a purely expository role.17 Any member of the twelve-linked chain may be picked up, tracing how its presence brings about the remaining links in the chain, or how its absence eliminates them. The theory of the twelve limbs can be understood as a theory of creation (in the sense of a theory how the world came to be). For every one of the psycho-physiological states that make up the twelve limbs the theory provides us with an explanation for why this state is there. It is there because its preceding limb was there, and this preceding state has caused the succeeding state. Moreover, given the cyclical structure of the twelve links we are never going to run out of explanations: there is always some prior state to explain the existence of the present state. One might wonder, nevertheless, whether the theory of the twelve links of dependent arising can be really understood as a theory of creation, describing the origin of all there is, given its focus on the specific mental and physical states of individual beings.18 However, in the Buddha’s view these may turn out to be the same thing. In the Rohitassasutta19 the Buddha responds to the question whether the end of the world 15 37-38, 'jig rten ma rig rkyen can du || gan phyir sangs rgyas rnams gsungs pa | | 'di yi phyir na 'jig rten 'di || rnam rtog yin zhes cis mi 'thad | | ma rig 'gags par gyur pa na || gang zhig 'gog par 'gyur ba de | | mi shes pa las kun brtags par || ji lta bu na gsal mi 'gyur (Lindtner 1982, 112) 16 Craving (taṇhā) in particular is usually singled out as the direct cause of suffering in explications of the Second Noble Truth (yāyaṃ taṇhā ponobhavikā, Antasutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 3:103, PTS S iii 26, “It is this craving which leads to renewed existence” (Bhikkhu Bodhi 2000: 963)). The notion of craving is closely connected with that of karma (kamma, cetana, and taṇhā are considered as one thing appearing under different guises) and with the notion of ignorance, as the core of craving is the mistaken idea of a substantial self. 17 Buddhaghosa points out in the Visuddhimagga (17: 36) that any primacy ascribed to ignorance is only to be understood as an expository device, not as an indication of ontological primacy: “But why is ignorance stated as the beginning here? How then, is ignorance the causeless root-cause of the world like the Primordial Essence of those who assert the existence of a Primordial Essence? It is not causeless. For a cause of ignorance is stated thus, 'With the arising of cankers there is the arising of ignorance'. But there is a figurative way in which it can be treated as the root cause. What way is that? When it is made to serve as a starting point in an exposition of the round [of becoming].” (Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli 1991: 534). For further discussion of this point see Macy 1991: 48-51. 18 “the […] theory of the twelve members of dependent origination refers only to the genesis of the living, sentient individual in saṃsāra and his potential release.” (Geshe Sopa 1984: 134-135.) 19 Aṅguttara Nikāya 4:45. could be reached by physical movement, and points out that even one endowed with extraordinary powers of flight could would not be able to. Despite the enormous spatial extension of the world, however, it is also confined in a very small space, since the Buddha then goes on to say that “[i]t is in this fathom-long body endowed with perception and mind that I proclaim the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world”.20 There are at least two different perspectives one can have on this passage. On the one hand, ‘reaching the end of the world’ for the Buddha has nothing to do with movement in space, but is concerned with ending the process of rebirth in cyclic existence. As such the Buddha’s teachings are only interested in the experiential aspects of the world, in the world to the extent that it involves the problem of suffering, not in the world understood as some physical container that may or may not contain sentient beings. On the other hand the passage can also be taken as saying that the experiential aspects are all there is to the world, and that the Buddha is here not simply pointing out the restricted focus of his teaching, a teaching interested in soteriology, but not in cosmology, but that he makes an ontological statement about the world, it origin and eventual cessation being nothing but the epistemic and mental processes of sentient beings. Whether these two perspectives are mutually exclusive and, if so, which of them is correct is not a question we need to settle here. Nevertheless, the passage makes it clear that the world, to the extent that the Buddha’s teachings talk about it is accounted for in terms of the twelve links of dependent origination, which can for this reason be understood as theory of creation. From the above discussion it has become clear that the Buddhist account of creation as we find it in the early discourses is characterized by two features that distinguish it from accounts of other religious traditions. First, the Buddhist account includes no causal foundation. In the form of the twelve links of dependent origination it presents an account of how the world came to be which allows us to answer the question “and why did this come about?” for every link by describing its cause, but without including any unexplained explainers, entities that are brute insofar as we cannot account for them causally in turn (whether such entities are divine agents of natural causes). Note that this does not commit the Buddhist to a circular account of causality according to which some cause c brings about an effect e which, if we follow back the chain of c’s causal ancestors long enough eventually turns up in this chain, having helped to cause c. If we consider, for example how a moment of ignorance (avijja) causes a conditioning force (sankhāra) in the twelve links of dependent origination, we will finally arrive at avijja being caused by old age and death (jāra-maraṇa). However, this does not mean that the first moment of ignorance has simply caused itself, since we are talking about two different mental events that happen at different times (in fact, according to the model described here, during different lifetimes). As such, the model is probably best described as a spiral that extends back infinitely: each revolution of the twelve links produces phenomena of 20 Bhikkhu Bodhi 2012: 435, api cāhaṃ āvuso imasmiṃ yeva byāmamatte kalebare saññimhi samanake lokañca paññāpemi lokasamudayañca lokanirodhañca lokanirodhagāminiñca paṭipadanti, PTS A ii 50. the same kinds (moments of ignorance, instances of conditioning forces) while also moving forward in time. Second, the Buddhist account of creation involves no clear distinction between explaining the origin of an inanimate ‘container’ in which living beings are placed, and explaining the origin of the beings themselves. Instead, the theory of the twelve links of dependent origination describes a picture according to which mental and physical states of beings (the rūpa in nāma-rūpa) arise in a mutually dependent manner.21 And since we cannot make sense of the bodies of living beings without placing them in some environment in which they arise, which sustains them, and with which they interact the theory has to be understood as account of the inanimate world in which beings live as well. For this reason the animate and inanimate world co-originate in a mutually dependent manner. After these comments on the notion of creation in early Buddhist materials I would now like to turn to two philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism that have important things to say on this matter, Madhyamaka, founded in the first or second century CE by Nāgārjuna, and Yogācāra, drawing in important ways of the works of the half-brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu (3rd/4th century CE). 2. The origin of the world in Madhyamaka: non-foundationalism and the denial of a first cause While in the early Buddhist sources the notion of dependent origination is primarily spelt out in terms of the twelve links (nidāna), in the philosophical developments of the Mahāyāna, and especially in the Madhyamaka school the term is understood a much wider sense. First of all, it is considered to include instances of dependence that are not explicitly mentioned in the chain of the twelve links, such as the dependence of sprouts on seeds. Second, dependent origination is understood as comprising a somewhat wider set of dependence relations. In addition to the instances of causal dependence that connect the links to one another, Madhyamaka also includes mereological dependence (the dependence of the whole on its parts) and conceptualization dependence (the dependence of some object on the conceptualizing mind) amongst the dependence relations that constitute the network of dependent origination. If everything is part of the network of dependent origination, then everything is dependent on some other thing or things (which is not to say that everything depends on everything else,22 though it is implied by it). In this case nothing can 21 The interdependence of the mental and physical aspects of existence described by the theory of dependent origination is also stressed by Bikkhu Anālayo (2018:11): “The conceptual and material properties of an object require consciousness in order to be experiences. In turn, consciousness depends on name-and-form as that which provides the content of what consciousness is aware of.” 22 This understanding of dependent origination is implied by the Avamtaṃsakasūtra’s image of Indra’s net (Cleary 1993: 925), a structure of strung-up jewels where each jewel reflects each other jewel. See Cleary 1983: 37-38 for some discussion. exist standing entirely on its own, in the way substances are usually considered to exist in the Western tradition, and similarly nothing can exist by its own intrinsic nature (svabhāva), without requiring the presence of other things that existentially support it.23 For this reason dependent origination is Madhyamaka’s main argument for its theory of universal emptiness (in fact Nāgārjuna equates dependent origination with emptiness).24 The Madhyamaka theory of emptiness can be interpreted as a thoroughgoing denial of foundationalism.25 The “foundations” in question are taken to be entities possessing intrinsic natures (svabhāva) and the denial of their existence is the Mādhyamika’s theory of emptiness (śūnyatā). As such it is evident that Madhyamaka will be highly critical of any account of how the world came to be that postulates any entity that has not itself originated in some way. For if there was such an entity, divine or mundane, then it would bear the explanation for its existence purely in itself, and this involves precisely the kind of intrinsicality that the Mādhyamika rejects. If foundationalism is ruled out, only two other possible dependence-structures remain, infinitely descending and circular ones. Even though Mādhyamikas accept infinitely regressive dependence chain (for example in the case of mereological dependence),26 when providing an alternative to the foundationalist picture, the focus is on circular structures. It is evident that the Madhyamaka anti-foundationalist picture of the how the world came to be, and the traditional Christian account of creation via a first cause are located at opposite ends of the metaphysical spectrum.27 At such it is interesting to look briefly at an early historical instance where these two views clashed in a highlevel debate between Tibetan and Catholic scholasticism. Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733) was an Italian Jesuit missionary resident in Tibet between 1716 and 1721.28 What is particularly noteworthy about Desideri is his indepth engagement with Tibetan Buddhist intellectual culture which led him to compose five works in classical Tibetan. In these works Desideri tries to refute some key Buddhist ideas (in particular reincarnation and emptiness) from the perspective of Catholic Christianity. He does so in a framework accessible to a scholar trained in the Tibetan Buddhist scholastic tradition, employing a multitude of quotations from Buddhist sūtras and commentaries to support his points. Of particular interest in the present context is a work called “The origin of all beings and things” (sems can dang chos la sogs pa rnams kyi ‘byung khungs),29 written between 1717 and 1718, when Desideri was living in Sera monastery. Here Desideri argues 23 An added complication is here that the Abhidharma does accept the existence of causally dependent entities with svabhāva, while Madhyamaka denies that anything causally dependent can have svabhāva. The reason for this is that Abhidharma and Madhyamaka have different concepts of causation. For an account of the Madhyamaka concept, see Siderits 2016. 24 Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24:18. See Siderits/Katsura 2013: 277-278. 25 Westerhoff 2017. 26 Bodhicaryāvatāra 9:85-86, Crosby/Skilton 1995: 124. 27 Of course the early Buddhist and the Christian view are similarly opposed. Yet in the case of Madhyamaka the opposition is even more pronounced, since while the Abhidharma does at least allow the existence of a (though impersonal) ground of all beings in the form of dharmas, Madhyamaka is strongly opposed to any such foundationalist ideas. 28 For further background see Pomplun 2010, Lopez/Jinpa 2017. 29 Toscano 1984. that the Madhyamaka conception of dependent origination makes no sense unless we assume that there is some entity outside of dependent origination and hence unconditioned that brought the whole dependently originated network into existence. The Mādhyamika will of course respond that the network of causes stretches infinitely backwards, and that therefore there was never any moment in time when it was brought into existence, and as such there is no need to postulate any entity prior to it that was the cause of bringing it into existence. Desideri presupposes that causation involves some form of energy transfer, and if such transfer extended infinitely backwards it could never have started. He illustrates this point by a peripatetic example: For instance, if the road that leads from India to Lhasa is infinite, in other words, endless, one would never arrive in Lhasa; likewise, a person who wants to go from Lhasa to India, will never get there either, because if the road from India to Lhasa is infinite, the reverse holds true as well. Now given that there are people who have travelled to Lhasa from India, they must have done so by setting out from a fixed point at a finite distance from Lhasa. Otherwise anyone attempting to travel the same way back from Lhasa would never arrive at the Indian starting point of the first journey, since he would have to traverse an infinite distance, and would therefore never reach his goal.30 But now, Desideri argues, if the Madhyamaka does not want to say that the network of dependent origination came from nothing, and if he also cannot say that its origin goes back infinitely, the only possibility is that it came from something, and this something Desideri unsurprisingly equates with the creator god. We do not know what Desideri’s Tibetan interlocutors replied to this argument. A response they might have given consists of the following two points. First, Desideri’s argument relies crucially on the idea that something is transferred from the cause to the effect (so that one my raise the objection of where this something is coming from if its origin is forever deferred). Yet this is not the Madhyamaka position. The Śālistambasūtra, one of the key Mahāyāna sūtras treating dependent origination denies transference of any entity between this life and the next, that is, between the last mind-moment of the present and the first mind-moment of the next life, and it is clear that this denial of transference generalizes mutatis mutandis to all cause-effect relations: Therein, there is nothing whatsoever that transmigrates from this world to another world. There is (only) the appearance of the fruit of karma, because of the non-deficiency of causes and conditions. It is, monks, like the reflection of a face seen in a well-polished mirror. No face transmigrates into the mirror, but there is the appearance of the face because of the non-deficiency of causes 30 Desideri does not discuss the option that two points are separated by a finite distance (like the numbers 1 and 2) and still have infinitely many spatial points between them (corresponding to all the real numbers in the interval between 1 and 2). and conditions. […] There is (only) the appearance of the fruit of karma, because of the non-deficiency of causes and conditions.31 For this reason the Madhyamaka would deny that there is anything passed on from the cause to the effect. There is only the appearance of the effect (karma-phalaprativijñapti), much as there is only appearance of the face in the mirror, and as such there is not necessity to answer where whatever is passed from cause to effect first came from. 32 Yet even if we assume for the sake of argument that a transfer from cause to effect does indeed take place (and this is the Mādhyamika’s second point), an additional complication to be addressed before Desideri’s argument can go through is that in the Madhyamaka context, the dependence of the effect on the cause is not the only dependence relation involved in the network of dependent origination. As we noted above, there are two others, dependence of wholes on their parts, and, most relevant in the present context, the dependence of a conceptualized object on the conceptualizing mind. And if the network of dependent origination is itself arisen dependent on conceptualizing minds the Mādhyamika would have some way of responding to Desideri’s argument involving a transfer from cause to effect. For even if we accept that the existence of any effect is due to something being transferred from a prior cause, and if there must have been some entity from which the baton in the causal relay-race first came from, this entity could itself be dependent on conceptualizing minds. And even if that should imply that minds (or rather the mind-moments that compose them) have to be regarded as fundamental, this would still be insufficient for Desideri’s purposes, since he requires the causal origin of the world to be a personal entity, not an impersonal stream of causally connected dharmas. The dispute between Desideri and his Buddhist opponents about the creation of the world brings out a fundamental disagreement between the metaphysical systems in which the two were operating: a form of metaphysical foundationalism on the one hand, where the ultimate foundation for all existence would be provided by a creator god, and an anti-foundationalist metaphysics on the other hand, an account were all things are regarded as a vast network of dependence relations, without a temporal, mereological, causal, or conceptual fixed point on which everything else depends. 31 tatra na kaściddharmo 'smāl-lokāt-paralokaṃ saṃkrāmati | asti ca karmaphalaprativijñaptirhetupratyayānām-avaikalyāt | tadyathā bhikṣavaḥ supariśuddha ādarśamaṇḍale mukhapratibimbakaṃ dṛśyate | na ca tatra ādarśamaṇḍale mukhaṃ saṃkrāmati | asti ca mukhaprativijñaptir-hetupratyayānām-avaikalyāt | […] asti ca karmaphalaprativijñaptir-hetupratyayānām-avaikalyāt, (Reat 1998: 64). 32 Both the assumption that causation involves some kind of transfer (usually understood as a transfer of energy from cause to effect), and the claim that existential dependence is to be conceived along the lines of a kind of inheritance model are controversial. For some contemporary discussion of the former, see Earman 1976, Dowe 2000, for the latter, Trogdon 2018. 3. The origin of the world in Yogācāra: the storehouse consciousness and the mindmade world Apart from its connection with dependent origination, the question of the role of creation in Buddhism links up with another fundamental Buddhist idea: that of reality as mind-made. The influence of mental states on our perception of the world plays a large role in Buddhism as a whole.33 As such it is perhaps not too surprising that we find certain parts of Buddhist thought concentrating on spelling out the idea that the entire world is mental. Although the seeds for this view are present in early Buddhist texts it comes to full bloom in Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra34 and the Yogācāra works of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. One of the fundamental Yogācāra positions that these thinkers spell out with reference to the two sūtras is that our perception of material objects like tables and chairs, and even of our physical bodies, is in fact a mis-perception where we mistakenly identify a mental object as a physical one. A crucial component of this picture is the notion of a fundamental level of consciousness (ālayavijñāna), sometimes referred to as ‘storehouse consciousness’. This latter name is particularly apt, since this level of consciousness functions as a storehouse or depository for karmic seeds where they reside from their production up to their fruition. When a particular intentional action is carried out by some being, a karmic seed is deposited at the level of the ālayavijñāna. It continues in a dormant state until, when the conditions are ripe, it begets its karmic fruit. This experience is not just a hedonic state, but an experience that is misperceived as an experience caused by an external, non-mental object, whereas its cause was in fact wholly mental. For the Yogācārin, the cup and saucer I see before me right now are not caused by some ceramic matter out there in the world but rather by the ripening of a karmic trace (or rather a complex array of such traces) deposited in the foundational consciousness by my previous intentions. The karmic traces present at the level of foundational consciousness in the minds of different people can be more or less similar. Sufficient similarity of traces implies that the world appearing to minds that house these traces (once the traces ripen) are also very similar. This is the way the Yogācāra explains the fact that beings can live in a shared world where they all observe more or less the same objects. In his Viṃśikā Vasubandhu explains that the beings in the Buddhist hell realms are not tortured by real demons, rather they have similar experiences of their hellish surroundings and the hell guardians that populate them due to the shared karmic traces in their mindstreams.35 The Yogācārin, it appears, cannot only explain why I seem to see a material cup in front of me (karmic traces ripening in my mind-stream that give rise to cup-experiences), even though there is no matter, his system also has the resources to account for all of us seeing the same cup (similar karmic traces ripening in all our mind-streams simultaneously, giving rise to similar cupexperiences). 33 Compare the beginning of the Dhammapada: “Dharmas are led by the mind, ruled by the mind, produced by the mind.” manopubbaṅgamā dhamma manoseṭṭhā manomayā. See Narada Thera 1978: 1-4. 34 Both ca 4th century CE; the Laṅkāvatārasūtra may be considerably earlier. 35 Tola/Dragonetti 2004: 136-137. These ideas throw an interesting light on the question of creation. In the Yogācāra case the world is quite literally mind-made. This does not mean that we can think whatever we want to into existence right now, but that our present intentions, via the regularities of karmic causality, bring about changes in our state of mind at a later state that will be habitually projected outwards and thus mis-interpreted as the appearance of a mind-independent, external world. But if the world of cyclic existence is mind-created in this way, it can also be dissolved by bringing about the right changes in our mind-stream. By the purification of the seeds lying dormant at the fundamental level of each mind the cycle of rebirth can be terminated and liberation can be achieved. I would like to look briefly at two areas of Buddhist thought where the influence of Yogācāra-influenced ideas of world-creation as a mental act can be seen particularly clearly. The first concerns tantric visualization practices, the second the idea of special realms of existence called pure lands or Buddha-fields. Tantric Buddhist practices involve a kind of world-creation en miniature, practices during which the meditator vizualises the palace of a tantric deity (the blueprint of which are the two-dimensional maṇḍalas familiar from tantric iconography), adorned by its ornaments and attributes, and accompanied by its retinue, and visualizes himself as a fully enlightened Buddha. At the end of the mediation all these deities are dissolved back into the practitioner’s own mind. The details of these highly complex visualizations are set out at great length in tantric practice manuals which the meditator recites during the meditation exercise. Now it would be easy to conceptualize these practices as at best a form of religiously inspired fantasy, or, less charitably, as the establishment of a delusional world-view dangerously disconnected from one’s real surroundings. In neither case would we be able to explain the supposed efficacy of these practices as a means for achieving enlightenment. In order to explain this we have to take into account the Yogācāra background that provides the philosophical foundation for much of tantric practice. For if reality is fundamentally mental in nature, it can also be manipulated by purely mental means. More precisely, if reality is constituted by traces present in our mindstream, trying to change these traces will automatically change experience,36 and thereby change reality itself. This process can go either way: the delusions of the schizophrenic might create a world of fear and terror, while those of the tantric practitioner aim to produce one filled with enlightened beings.37 According to this understanding the creation of the world is not a process that was accomplished at some time in the remote past, but it is an ongoing process of world-generation which happens at every moment, and which, if practiced with the right amount of skill and the right motivation has the potential to transform the world from the present cyclic 36 “Those who have attained slight mastery with respect to wisdom are able to visualize clearly and firmly the entire mandala […] They have by this stage become so familiar with the images visualized that those images can appear with the slightest effort; thus, it is said that it is no longer necessary to distinguish meditative sessions from non-sessions, since one can do deity yoga at all times, maintaining the sense that one is a deity while carrying out all manner of daily activities.” Cozort 2005: 53. 37 Beyer 1973: 83. of cyclic existence characterized by suffering into the enlightened abode of the Buddhas. The idea of mind-made worlds unaffected by the shortcomings of saṃsāra is taken up again in the idea of the ‘pure realms’ created by different bodhisattvas.38 These realms, products of the merit that the bodhisattvas have accumulated as part of their training are places ideally conducive to spiritual progress, free from many of the instances of suffering one finds in other forms of existence. Nevertheless, the Buddhist tradition stresses that these are not simply products of the bodhisattva’s creative powers, but really co-created by the bodhisattvas and the beings reborn in them. In one of the most famous Mahāyāna sūtras, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra we find a discussion of the question why the world we live in is not a pure realm: The Buddha declared, “In the same way, Śāriputra,39 the fact that some living beings do not behold the splendid display of virtues of the buddha-field of the Tathāgata is due to their own ignorance. It is not the fault of the Tathāgata. Sariputra, the buddha-field of the Tathāgata is pure, but you do not see it.” […] [The god Brahma adds:] “The fact that you see such a buddha-field as this as if it were so impure, reverend Śāriputra, is a sure sign that there are highs and lows in your mind and that your positive thought in regard to the buddhagnosis is not pure either. Reverend Śāriputra, those whose minds are impartial toward all living beings and whose positive thoughts toward the buddha-gnosis are pure see this buddha-field as perfectly pure.”40 Thus the idea is that the present world actually is a pure realm, but that only those with sufficiently purified perception are able to see it. Once again we see the importance of the idea of dependent origination when discussing Buddhist notions of creation. In the same way in which there is no clear distinction of accounts of the creation of an inanimate set of surroundings which contains living beings, and accounts of the beings themselves, there is also no clear distinction between a creator and an audience for whom the creation is intended. Instead, both are locked in an interdependent process of co-creation without any one being existentially prior to the other. I hope the preceding remarks have convinced the reader that the question of the concept of creation in Buddhism is not one that should simply be put aside by noting that Buddhism accepts no creator god, and therefore also has nothing to say on a process of creation such a god would bring about. Rather, if we conceive of a theory 38 Gómez 1996. Śāriputra, one of the foremost disciples of the Buddha is portrayed in this sutra as a representative of the preMahāyāna perspective which the Mahāyāna considers to be problematically restricted. 40 Thurman 1976: 18, āha evam eva śāriputra satvānām ajñānāparādha eṣa yas tathāgatasya buddhakṣetraguṇālaṃkāravyūhaṃ kecit satvā na paśyanti, na tatra tathāgatasyāparādhaḥ | pariśuddhaṃ hi śāriputra tathāgatasya buddhakṣetraṃ yūyaṃ punar idaṃ na paśyatha | […] nūnaṃ bhadanta śāriputrasyotkūlanikūlaṃ cittam apariśuddhabuddhajñānāśayaṃ yenedṛśaṃ buddhakṣetraṃ paśyasi | ye punas te bhadanta śāriputra bodhisatvāḥ sarvasatvasamacittāḥ sarvasatvasamacittāḥ pariśuddhabuddhajñānāśayās ta imaṃ buddhakṣetraṃ pariśuddhaṃ paśyanti, Takahashi 2006: 1.15-16. 39 of creation in a more comprehensive manner, as an account of how the world came to be, we note at least two important facts when considering what Buddhists have to say about creation. First, there is an important structural difference in the accounts of world-generation we find in Buddhism and in other traditions, to the extent that the Buddhist model incorporates a thoroughgoing non-foundationalism that does not admit the existence of an independent temporal, mereological, causal, or conceptualizing primary entity that stands at the beginning of the chain of creation, but argues for a circular model that dispenses with such independent primary entities. Second, the question of creation immediately connects us with two of the most profound concepts in Buddhist philosophy: Madhyamaka’s theory of emptiness understood as dependent origination, and the Yogācāra idea of the world as fundamentally mind-made. 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