LANKAVATARA-SUTRA

(Lit., "Descent into [Sri] Lanka")

Kalupahana, Chapter 18: Unlike the Diamond-Cutter Sutra, which reconstructed concepts, language, and therefore "objects", the Lankavatara stays in the deconstruction stage, so that one must transcend concepts and language to a non-empirical transcendental reality now called the Dharmata-Buddha = Nirvana. Its deconstructive methodology should lead the author’s to consistent negative transcendentalism, as in Nagarjuna. But many of its passages read like absolute monism or Yogcara idealism. Note constant mention of "Universal Mind" in the selections from this sutra in the Stryk anthology. Kaluphana appears to be correct when he states that this is one of most inconsistent Mahayana sutras. Its saving grace is its highly metaphorical description of ultimate reality.

Kalupahana: a transcendentalist answer to the pragmatic and experientialist Buddhism that existed there and still exists in Sri Lanka.

The first mention of Sri Lanka in the Pail sutras is when the Buddha was said to have "flown" to Sri Lanka with his disciples from NE India.

Kalupahana finds its strange that no scholar has taken the title very seriously, so in an appendix (pp. 241 ff.) he attempts to reconstruct the possibility of a Mahayana campaign on the island during the 4^th Cent. CE. He speculates that the Lankavatara was quickly thrown together (hence its unsystematic character) to aid in this missionary movement, one that ultimately failed and made Sri Lankan Buddhist very suspicious of any Buddhism coming over from India.

Chap. 1 The Buddha dialogues with none other than Ravana, the ten headed "demon" king, famous for the Hindu epic Ramayana. He is converted to the shunyata doctrine. Historically, Buddhism did not come to the island until King Ashoka’s missionaries arrived in the 3rd Cent. BCE.

Chap. 2 Starts dialogue with Mahamati, the chief Boddhisattva residing in Sri Lanka. Mahamati's panlinguist argument (panlinguism is the view that reality is constructed by language):

Words bring things into existence; therefore, no words, no arising

Buddha: What about the words with no objects? E.g., hare’s horn, tortoise's hair, barren woman’s child or realms of existence where no words exist, namely, Buddha-worlds? Here ideas are expressed without words, but with gestures. (We can understand why this sutra was popular with Zen Buddhists.) Therefore, ultimate reality without discrimination and without images.

Critique: Narrow view of conceptualization and a narrow view of language? Can't one know without concepts and images? And don't gestures constitute a language?

P.183: "This is the nature as it is (dharmata) of all things, which belongs to the realm of [Buddha] Mind, and it is not comprehended by the ignorant as they are confused by every form of imagination." What happened to the authors’ transcendentalism? Without any further qualification this could read as a form of absolute monism. Sounds like the Lotus Sutra in this regard.

LANKAVATARA SUTRA ON NIRVANA

(Stryk, pp. 277-282)

Four Groups on the Question.

I. Those who are afraid of suffering and seek escape (for selfish reasons?) The mistakenly see Nirvana as mere extinction. They do not realize that Universal Mind and Nirvana are one and the same.

II. The Philosophers (selected views):

A. Cessation of conceptualization

B. Cessation of substrate, as when a fire goes out.

C. Cessation of the passions

D. Absorption of Atman into Brahman: Vedanta

E. Liberation of soul (purusha) from matter (prakriti) "Especially Silly!"

F. Merging with Ishvara the Creator God of Hinduism.

G. Nirvana and the 25 "truths" (elements?) of the Abhidharma?

H. Nirvana is Paradise (The "Pure Land").

Problems with II: The philososphers "conceive Nirvana dualistically and in some causal connection." For the Buddhists of this sutra there is no arising and disappearing, so how can there be discrimination and conceptualization?

III. Nirvana of the Arhats (monks) is a voyage of self-discovery--isolated self and solitude. They attain only the Sixth Jhana (?) or at least some form of samadhi. They cling to their bliss. They are only Sotapana ("entered the stream"). All they have achieved is a guarantee of no lower existence.

They are, however, good idealists--"they recognize that the world is only a manifestation of mind"--but they are not good ethically, because "they forsake social relations and practice vvarious spiritual disciplines and in solitude seek self-realization. . ." (279).

IV. Nirvana of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, who are selfless while the Arhats are selfish. They are spiritually one with all animate life. Focus on the heart, not on the mind. Nirvana is love. In them there is an end of four-fold craving: (1) thirst for life; (2) sex; (3) learning; (4) eternal life.

Universal mind is Nirvana sounds very philosophical. Very close to Atman being absorbed into Brahman. Why is this concept OK?

P. 281 (top): There really is no Nirvana? Yes, because there is really is no Samsara. So Nirvana is not anything that is attained, because it is already the Universal Mind or the Dharma-kaya, here called the Dharmata-Buddha.

Transcendentalism in the Sutra: imagelessness (277); not "found by mental searching" (279); and focus on heart not mind. Entire second full paragraph on p. 281. Noble Wisdom (prajna) is insight beyond all concepts and language. It’s like the distinction between understanding and knowledge in Being Peace. Nirvana is the union of Perfect Wisdom and Perfect Love.