The Dark Dharma

Ajahn Buddhadasa was a revered and controversial 20th-century Thai Theravada monk. He passed away in 1993 at the age of 87 and remains quite controversial, especially among Western Buddhists, at least when we look at online Buddhism forums. There is a kind of reverence for his teachings while simultaneously calling him a "troublemaker" and other worse things. These same people on internet forums, all Westerners, also try to claim that Buddhadasa taught the traditional notion of rebirth — something he clearly did not teach and which he explicitly abhorred; one only needs to read his book, titled Paticcasamuppada, which means dependent origination in Pali, the liturgical language used by Theravada Buddhism.

The book is based on lectures he gave and deals precisely with the teaching of dependent origination in a way that is completely different from how it is taught by traditional Buddhism, whether Theravada or not. In it, Buddhadasa opposes the great 5th-century Theravada master, Buddhaghosa, an Indian who settled in Sri Lanka and wrote the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, a great manual of Buddhist practice, meditation, and philosophy. At least some notable Western Theravada monks, such as Ajahn Brahm and Bhikkhu Bodhi, make it clear that Buddhadasa is not orthodox, being more honest with themselves than a considerable portion of internet Buddhists.

For someone like me, reading Buddhadasa's Paticcasamuppada is a relief. But for those who like and believe in literal rebirth in other lives, Buddhadasa's interpretation is awful. Of course, these people usually don't even know who he was, and when they do, they either ignore his teachings or, at most, minimize his influence, taking as truth the idea spread in forums that he only focused on the practice of meditation and detachment to counter the mysticism that had taken over Thai Buddhism at that point in history, in the early and mid-20th century. This is completely false. Yes, Buddhadasa opposed mysticism, but the whole issue of focusing on meditation and detachment practices for him wasn't merely a tactic to get rid of the mysticism that reigned among Buddhists in Thailand; the very notion of rebirth was, for him, mysticism and an incorrect interpretation of the Pali scriptures.

For Buddhadasa, there is no such thing as metaphysical transmigration. For him, the very doctrine of anatta, which means no-self or no-soul in Pali, would negate any possibility of something that goes from one life to another. Buddhadasa has a strong Theravada interpretation of anatta: this teaching serves not only to point out what the true self is not, it is not merely a pedagogy of detachment, but it says that there is literally no self, soul, or metaphysical center. The self or soul is a fabrication that causes enormous suffering, according to Buddhadasa — and according to the Buddha as well. The notion that the self is a pernicious illusion is something that the vast majority of all traditional Buddhism that believes in literal rebirth also agrees with, to the point that they themselves call any self-proclaimed Buddhist who teaches that there is a "true self" a charlatan. The only exception to this rule would be the few Mahayana schools whose focus is on the Tathagatagarbha sutras, which emerged in the 3rd century AD, and who teach that within all sentient beings inhabiting samsara there is a Buddha-nature being gestated, and this nature would be, perhaps, the true self. But even these schools disagree on whether this would be the true self or whether this would be a tactic to attract people who believe in a true self to Buddhism.

So, what the hell is paticasamuppada? In the Theravada tradition, which is embodied in the teachings of the master Buddhaghosa, the process of dependent origination takes three lifetimes. It explains rebirth in the realm of samsara, the world of becoming, where there is decay, pain, and death, and where nothing is constant. This is what we must free ourselves from by practicing Buddhism and reaching, after many lifetimes, nibbana, in Pali, or nirvana, in Sanskrit. This is the classical interpretation of Buddhism. There are twelve links of dependent origination that are divided into three lives. Here are the links: (1) ignorance (avijja, in Pali); (2) volitional or mental formations (sankhara); (3) consciousness (vinnana); (4) name and form (nama-rupa); (5) six sensory bases (salayatana); (6) contact (phassa); (7) sensation (vedana); (8) desire (tanha); (9) attachment (upadana); (10) becoming (bhava); (11) birth (jati); (12) old age and death (jara-marana).

And how do these connections occur between three lives?

Well, in the past life, we were ignorant and performed karmically effective actions. The ignorance and actions of the past life engendered a new life, the current one, in which a new consciousness emerged. This, in turn, gave light to the name and form or mentality and materiality of our person. Name and form, then, engendered the six sensory bases, from which came contact with the external world, which then gave rise to sensation, which in turn gave rise to desire, which gave birth to attachment, which in turn gave birth to becoming. If we do not free ourselves from the ignorance that engendered our current life and begin to practice the Buddhist dharma (i.e. teaching), we will return to samsara in the next life, where the last links in the chain will occur; that is, we will be born and face old age and death again, going through the entire process of dependent origination again. This is the classical form taught by Theravada Buddhism, mainly from Buddhaghosa in the 5th century. Mahayana Buddhism also teaches dependent origination and also talks about the twelve links, but its focus is different. Mahayana Buddhism tends to treat the concept of dependent origination based on the teachings of Nagarjuna, a master from the second century AD, who taught that all things are conditioned by others, therefore empty of independent and permanent substance.

Buddhadasa, however, sees the idea of ​​separating the links of dependent origination into three distinct lives as a great mistake, to the point of pointing to the non-Buddhist origins of Buddhaghosa. For Buddhadasa, Buddhaghosa, who was originally a Hindu Brahmin, helped bring eternalism into Buddhism — I say "helped" because Buddhadasa recognizes that eternalism was already present since at least the time of the third Buddhist council, which took place in 250 BC, centuries before Buddhaghosa. According to Buddhadasa, when dependent origination is distributed across multiple lives, it becomes impossible to practice it, except through blind faith in the existence of multiple lives, and through dubious or even mistaken mystical experiences regarding past lives.

The Buddha famously said that his doctrine was neither annihilationism — that is, our life does not end with death — nor eternalism —that is, we do not continue forever. This is linked to the doctrine of anatta, of no-self. In traditional Buddhism, whether Theravada or Mahayana, what continues between one life and another is not exactly the same thing, an immutable soul inhabiting bodies, but something much more subtle, malleable, which we could never recognize as ourselves if we investigated every part of our being. For all traditional Buddhism, this means that, although it is difficult or impossible to speak about what exactly goes from one life to another, to the point that everything is mere speculation that does not impede meditative practice, there is indeed some indeterminate metaphysical thing that migrates between lives. This thing is, as I said, subtle, mutable, inconstant. Whatever it is, it is not a permanent self. But, in truth, it continues to serve the same purpose as a soul: this thing goes from one life to another, carrying the seeds of our karma.

However, Buddhadasa interprets the process of dependent origination not through a cosmic-metaphysical lens, but through a psycho-phenomenological stance. There is no atta (or atman), no self or soul; therefore, dependent origination would explain not the migration of a metaphysical essence between lives, but the birth of the illusory self in this single life of ours. While the emphasis of traditional Buddhism is liberation across multiple lifetimes, which encourages most laypeople to focus on accumulating merit for better rebirths until one day they have enough merit to become a monk or nun in a future life, Buddhadasa said that the real focus of the Buddha is the here and now, liberation from suffering in the present life. For him, the links of dependent origination occurs not through several metaphysically linked lives, but in our minds. And incredibly, scholars of the early history of Buddhism do not rule out that the original teachings had a strong psychological and phenomenological emphasis, although they also do not rule out the Buddha's metaphysical language.

Moreover, Buddhadasa does not deny that Buddha spoke of lives, of celestial, ghostly, animalistic, and infernal realms to which our essences can migrate depending on our karma — but Buddhadasa treats these as "rebirths" in different mental states in this life. For example, we could be reborn as animals in this life when our mental state approaches animalistic violence and lust. We could be like hungry ghosts in this life when our mental states bring us insatiable thirst and hunger. And so on. For him, Buddha taught through the language of relative truth and through the language of ultimate truth: the first full of myths and supernatural stories, the second focused on the practical reality of the here and now.

We can illustrate how Buddhadasa explains the links of dependent origintion through the following generic example. First, there is ignorance, which conditions mental or volitional formations, which in turn condition consciousness, which in turn conditions name and form (or mentality and materiality) and its six sensory bases: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Given this cognitive and sensory apparatus, when we see something unpleasant, there is sensory contact with that thing through our eyes. An unpleasant sensation arises from this contact, which engenders the desire for this experience to stop, and we take the experience for ourselves, even if it is negative, through attachment. Becoming identifies the offended illusory self with us. This offended self is born within us. We feel anger, sadness, we suffer, we spend days, months, or years thinking about it, until one day that self withers and dies within us, leaving behind trauma, stress, and pain.

Now, let's consider a positive experience. For example, the possibility of buying something arises. Given the cognitive and sensory basis, there is contact, from which a pleasant sensation arises. This sensation engenders a desire for that experience, which then produces an attachment to it, as it takes it for itself. A self is then born that needs to have that experience and is always at its mercy to fulfill itself. The entire process of dependent origination occurs faster than lightning according to Buddhadasa, and the best place to interrupt it is between the links of contact, sensation, and desire, through mindfulness and the cultivation of wisdom. The links of dependent origination begin with the ignorance of not having a permanent and stable self or soul. Knowing this, we can interrupt the process, because we are no longer ignorant of what is happening. A capable dharma practitioner will be able to interrupt this process before it becomes desire, then attachment, and everything else, through mindfulness. They will see things as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When we cease to be ignorant, when we meditate on the non-self, on anatta, we are able to free ourselves from the suffering generated by the illusion that we have a stable and permanent self. As Buddhadasa states in his Paticcasamuppada:

If one is hot and has a backache but nothing more, if one simply feels and knows that he is hot without any clinging to the 'I' concept as above, then the suffering of dependent origination has not arisen. Please observe this carefully and make clear the distinction between these two kinds of suffering. If there is clinging, it is suffering according to dependent origination. Suppose you cut your hand with a sharp knife or razor blade and the blood gushes out. If you simply feel the pain but don’t cling to anything, then your suffering is natural and not according to dependent origination.

According to Buddhadasa, even if this only occurs in one lifetime and even if our suffering ends with our death, the Buddha's teaching remains valid. Buddhism serves to stop us from suffering in this life, according to Buddhadasa, and not in several lifetimes that do not truly exist and will not be ours. By understanding and internalizing anatta, by perceiving how the links of dependent origination occur, we interrupt the process that produces a self and cease to suffer "beyond natural pains," which we share with other animals. But then, wouldn't Buddhadasa's view be annihilationism, the other extreme of eternalism that the Buddha also rejected? No, because according to Buddhadasa, anatta teaches that there is no self that is born, therefore, there is no self that dies. What dies is merely an empty shell, a ventriloquist's dummy whose strings are pulled by no one, or rather, are pulled by natural factors, of which we are an ephemeral part, but which deceive us by producing the idea of ​​a permanent self, an idea that is the basis of suffering.

Although he is a Theravada Buddhist, he uses the concept of sunnata (or shunyata in Sanskrit, meaning emptiness of substance), which is very important to Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhadasa uses sunnata to point to the emptiness of the self. He considers it wrong to teach dependent origination through three or more lives precisely because, for him, this prevents putting into practice the end of ignorance here and now, in this life, and thus it fixates an eternalist notion of true self within Buddhism. For him, the central point of Buddhist dharma is and always will be the origin of suffering (dukkha in Pali and Sanskrit), the possibility of ceasing suffering, and the path taught by the Buddha to that end.

What is this for, then, if it is just a psychological trick to not suffer more than one naturally suffers? Why pay attention to the teaching of dependent origination taught by the Buddha, if there is no other life? I think this quote from Buddhadasa that I brought illustrates it well. But, of course, it doesn't change everything. Buddhadasa teaches the following:

Dependent origination demonstrates the fact of suffering, its arising and its passing away. It does not demonstrate the owner of suffering, who carries suffering across existences and births. There is no owner of suffering. Suffering arises without an owner.

Okay, but that doesn't save us from the concrete reality of pain, a reality that life, even without a true self, is capable of providing, a reality that we share with the rest of the animal kingdom, as I've already said. Even when we detaching from the illusion of a self, physical pain itself can lead us to the paroxysm of despair, without the need to formulate, through dependent origination, a self that will suffer mentally beyond measure. The other half of the question, what begins to outline the dark dharma (or the dark teaching), is brought by the Indian jurist, social reformer, and scholar, Hari Singh Gour, who lived from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. I have cited him on other occasions, but, as usual, I will continue to do so with all the citations I consider good (in fact, as usual, I will continue to provide this explanation). In the book, The Spirit of Buddhism, Gour writes the following:

Buddha states his propositions in the pedantic style of his age. He throws them into a form of Sorites; but, as such, it is logically faulty and all he wishes to convey is this: "Oblivious of the suffering to which life is subject, man begets children, and is thus the cause of old age and death. If he would only realize what suffering he would add to by his act, he would desist from the procreation of children; and so stop the operation of old age and death."

This, of course, approaches cosmic pessimism and the view of reproduction as the perpetuation of a tragic situation that would be better avoided — the cosmic pessimism proposed by philosophers and writers such as Abu al-Ala al-Ma'ari, Giacomo Leopardi, Arthur Schopenhauer, Philipp Mainländer, Machado de Assis, Peter Wessel Zapffe, Emil Cioran, Julio Cabrera, Thomas Ligotti, and David Benatar, authors I often talk about, some more than others. I confess that, despite liking Buddhadasa a lot and seeing in his teachings the closest thing to what the Buddha's teachings would ultimately be, I certainly think that Buddha probably did teach what he imagined to be metaphysics. At the very least, he would have filled his main teachings about the reality and origin of suffering and the path to extinguish it with myths; myths that surrounded him and with which he grew up and was familiar. Myths such as reincarnation or rebirth in celestial realms, animalistic realms, ghostly realms, and infernal realms. In the end, I'm left with the image of the dark dharma, the pessimistic dharma, because that's the image that my investigation of the world has shown me to be the most accurate, unfortunately. I take no pleasure in saying this. Not even all my willpower could make me truly believe that there is some kind of supernatural order behind everything, a supernatural order that could be manipulated for our salvation, whether through Buddhism, Christianity, or any other religion.

Human life, in its entirety, is either a distraction from suffering and finitude, or a ceaseless coming and going into despair because of suffering and finitude, or a long — and sometimes not so long — meditation on suffering and death. Frequently it is all three at once, especially the first two, since the third, meditation on finitude and suffering, does not seem to be so common. This meditation, in fact, seems to be something always frowned upon. Even in contemporary times, where there is so much talk of the freedom of man as an individual, contemplating pain and death is seen as a niche, relegated to aesthetic manifestations particular to certain groups, such as black metal fans or goths, when it is not immediately considered a mental pathology.

Nothing against black metal, nor against goth, especially since I like both musical and artistic genres, but I find it sad that the contemplation of death and suffering is more associated with them than with philosophers. But that's to be expected, because a good part of philosophers are always seduced by the optimism that reigns in the human species, given the natural and cultural selection that always favors those who affirm life and never those who deny it, whether the denial is involuntary, which is more common and occurs in the case of natural weaknesses, or the voluntary, philosophical denial of life. That is why Thomas Ligotti wrote the following in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race:

Op­ti­mism has al­ways been an un­de­clared pol­icy of hu­man cul­ture — one that grew out of our an­i­mal in­stincts to sur­vive and re­pro­duce — rather than an ar­tic­u­lated body of thought. It is the de­fault con­di­tion of our blood and can­not be ef­fec­tively ques­tioned by our minds or put in grave doubt by our pains. This would ex­plain why at any given time there are more can­ni­bals than philo­soph­i­cal pes­simists.

Besides goths, metalheads, and a handful of philosophers, the contemplation of death is present in Christian monasteries, and even more frequently in Buddhist monasteries, which often have, in addition to skeletal remains, fresh, mutilated, and decomposing bodies for the monks to observe their end and detach themselves from their shell of flesh, blood, and bones. The contemplation of suffering, of the impermanence and death of all things, including ourselves, was even more present in a monk like Buddhadasa, for whom death was indeed the end of our stay in the universe, the return to the unconditioned natural state of oblivion without a return ticket to life, as occurs according to traditional Buddhist belief, which postulates a supernatural cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, ending in the blessed, ghostly unconditioned state of nirvana after countless lifetimes of accumulated merit and ascetic practices.

The nirvana that Buddhadasa spoke of is available to all of us now. We can have it today. And to finally put a tourniquet on suffering, we must do what the Buddha truly meant, at least according to Hari Singh Gour: we must give up procreation and thus end the operation of old age and death once and for all.

by Fernando Olszewski