1. SMU Friday Faculty Lunch Presentation
Approaching the Richness of Asian Philosophy
• Overview of the philosophy of Asia, particularly the
nondual schools of India and Tibet
• (12:35) Mindfulness Meditation Interlude
• Note the ways Asian and Western thought are changing
each other
• Note where Asian philosophy is slow to be recognized
• Identify reasons Asian thought remains difficult for
westerners to approach
• Q&A
Asian Philosophy? I didn’t know there was
philosophy in Asia.
3. “Religion” East and West
Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Daoism, Shintoism
• Religion
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Religion
• The Church
• Judeo-Christian
• Faith
• Theology
• Philosophy
• The Academy
• Greek
• Reason
• Science
Western Wisdom Traditions
Asian Wisdom Traditions
• Arts
• Literature
• Sciences: Mathematics,
Astronomy, Physical
Sciences, Health Sciences,
Deconstructing the “Religion Only” Myth of the Asian Wisdom Traditions
Overcoming the Modernist Aversion to Religion, Spirituality, & Faith
4. 2b-Philosophical Landscape of India
Six Hindu Philosophical Schools
1. Nyaya, School of Logic
» Vaiseshika, Atomist School
2. Samkhya, Enumeration School
» Yoga, School of Patanjali
3. Vedanta, Vedic Ritual School
» Mimamsa, Vedic School
• Advaita Vedanta
• Kashmir Shaivism
Buddhist Philosophical Schools
• 1-Hinayana, Abhidharma, Nikaya
• 18 Schools
• Sarvastivada
• Theravada
• Mahasanghika
• Mahayana
• 2-Madhyamaka
• 3-Yogachara
• Chinese Buddhist Schools
• Chan-Zen
• Japanese-Korean Schools
• Kyoto School
• Vajrayana
• Tibetan Schools
• Mongolian Buddhism
Non-Orthodox Schools
• Jainism: nonviolence, self-
control
• Cārvākas: skepticism, aetheism,
materialism
< < < < < The Vedas and the Upanishads > > > > >
5. Causality
Time
Becoming and Destruction
Conditions
Soul
Motion
The Senses
Mental Categories
Elements
Conditioned
Agent and Action
Initial and Final Limits
Suffering
Compounded Phenomena
Errors
Dependent Origination
Views
Logic
Ethics
Metaphysics
Syllogism
Argument and Debate
Topics of Indian Philosophy
6.
7.
8.
9. 2c-Indian Philosophy: Nondual Schools
Nondual = A-dva = A-dual = A-dvaita-vada = “Nondual Path”
• The Middle Way—escape from the prison of duality… from
• Philosophical-conceptual extremes: reification/nihilism,
affirmation/negation, idealism/realism, absolute/relative,
• Mental grasping, indications or definitions, language games
• Three-in-One: Religion, Philosophy, Psychology
• Academy & Church
Buddhist Nondual Schools
• Madhyamika
• Yogachara
Hindu Nondual Schools
• Advaita Vedanta
• Kashmir Shaivism
10. 2c-Philosophers of Nonduality
Nagarjuna
Time: 2nd Century
Founded: Madhyamaka (Mahayana Buddhism),
Madhyamika dialectic
Major Work: Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way
Shankara, Adi Shankara, Shankaracharya
Time: 8-9th Century
Founded: Advaita Vedanta, Hinduism
Major Works: numerous commentaries (bhasyas) and
treatises (prakaranas)
11. Central Concerns
• Critique of the mind
• Cessation of separateness
• Ultimate truth, freedom,
realization, awakening,
enlightenment,
• Moksha, Samadhi, Kensho
2c-Central Features of Advaita Philosophy
Essential Features of Advaita Systems
• Both transcendent and immanent…
• As transcendent…
• As immanent…
• Reality-paramartha and
Appearance-samvirti
• Avidya, transcendental illusion or
ignorance
Central Features of Buddhist
Nondualism
• Emptiness
• Dependent Arising
• Two Truths Doctrine
• Conventional Truth-Reality
• Ultimate Truth-Reality
Central Debate: Self –v No-self
To be or not to be is not the question in Advaita
12. Buddhist Wheel of Life
• Wheel of Dependent Arising
• Wheel of Becoming
• Wheel of Cyclic Existence
• Wheel of Rebirth
• Wheel of Samsara
• Bhavachakra
16. • Western Scholarship: focus on philological and
historical completeness
• Western Science: grounding experience in
neuroscience, biology, culture, language
• Feminism, in the ordination of Buddhist nuns, female
teachers
• Green/Ecology movement, in eco-Buddhism,
ordination of trees in Thailand to protect from cutting
• Social Service, in socially-engaged, service-oriented
Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh
• Humanism, Dalai Lama and human rights in
Tibet/China
• Intersubjective Critique: Culture, Language, History
4-Western Thought Changing Asian Thought
17. 5-Where Asian Thought is Slow to Be Recognized
Asian Studies, Religious Studies Departments
Examples:
• Oxford University Press brochure
• Pointing at the Moon introduction on the narrowness
of the APA and the growing globalization of academic
philosophy
18.
19.
20. 6-Barriers to Approaching Asian Thought
• Richness of the West: being occupied with our own debates,
narratives, and learning
• Enlightenment Pride: western superiority & ethnocentrism
– Science Orthodoxy: based in the success of materialist-reductionist
empirical science
– Aversion to Metaphysics: modernist suspicion of non-rational forms of
thought and experience
• Erroneous Charges: circulation of misunderstandings, beliefs
about, and dismissals of Asian thought
• Inaccessibility: distance due to (the historical) lack of
translations and the complexity of Asian traditions
• Otherness Anxiety: various forms of apprehension, uneasiness,
and discomfort when encountering cultural otherness
23. Three Root Afflictions/Poisons
• Ignorance (confusion, delusion)
• Attachment (desire, greed, lust)
• Aversion (hatred, aggression, anger)
Mara/Yama: God of Impermanence,
Lord of Death
"Mara" comes from the Proto-Indo-European root
*mer meaning to die;
• Hindi “maranē kē li'ē”,
• Latin “mori”, Spanish “morir”,
• English “morbid”, “ mortal”
…ignorance is equivalent to the
identification of a self as being separate
from everything else
