Affirmation of Eternal Self in the Mahāyāna Mahaparinirvana Sutra Tony Page ABSTRACT Contrary to widespread academic and public opinion, there does exist a positive stratum of affirmative teaching on a True Self within Buddhism, specifically in the Mahayana Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra and in the declarations of some notable Buddhist monks – Dolpopa of Tibet and Maha Boowa of Thailand. The article seeks to redress the balance regarding the ‘non-Self’ doctrine, specifically relative to the Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra . บทคัดยอ ในขณะที่นักวิชาการและสาธารณะชนทั่วไปเชื่อวา ศาสนาพุทธเนนความไมมีตัวตน (Non-Self) แตศาสนาพุทธนิกายมหายาน และพระภิกษุที่มีชื่อเสียงบางรูป เชน พระทิเบต ชื่อ Dolpopa และทานหลวงตามหาบัว ญาณสัมปนโน เชื่อวาศาสนาพุทธไดมีการกลาวถึง การมีตัวตนที่แทจริง (True Self) และบทความนี้พยายามชี้ใหเห็นวา ความเชื่อเรื่องความมี ตัวตนนั้นมีอยู Key words: Buddha; Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra; Self; ātman; tathāgata-garbha; Buddha nature; Dolpopa; Maha Boowa. 1. Introduction 2. The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra The prevailing view within scholarship on the The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra presents reality of any ‘Self’ in the Buddha’s teachings (both itself as the final Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha, Theravada and Mahayana) may be summarized as delivered on the last day and night of his physical life follows: The Buddha denied the Self or Soul (the upon earth. As such, it constitutes an alleged final ātman) and any enduring essence (svabhāva). He and definitive summation of the Buddha’s Dharma utterly rejected and refuted all notions of a permanent from a Mahāyāna perspective. Self or essence, both in the Pāli suttas and in the The sūtra survives in its Sanskrit form only in Mahāyāna scriptures. For the Buddha, man is some ten fragmentary pages. Fortunately, the sūtra composed solely of the five skandhas (constituent was translated into Tibetan and Chinese. The shortest elements) of body, feeling, cognition, volition, and and earliest extant translated version is the translation consciousness. That is the totality of man or any into Chinese by Faxian and Buddhabhadra in six juan other being. (418CE); the next in terms of scriptural develop- Is such a blanket denial of Selfhood within ment is the Tibetan version (c790CE) by Jinamitra, Buddhism, however, justified? Is it in fact accurate to Jñānagarbha and Devacandra; and the lengthiest claim that Buddhism denies, tout court, an imminent version of all is what is known as the “Northern and eternal Self? Is there not at least one major version” in 40 juan by Dharmaksema (422CE). I Mahayana scripture which speaks affirmatively of shall quote from all three versions in this paper, using the reality of the Self? both Kosho Yamamoto’s English translation of the I suggest that there is, and that this scripture is Dharmaksema, as well as the as-yet unpublished the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāna Sūtra. Teachings English translations by my friend and scholarly by the Tibetan monk, Dolpopa, and the present- colleague, Stephen Hodge, of the entire Tibetan day Thai forest monk, Maha Boowa, also contain version – a translation which I myself commissioned – affirmative statements on the Self. In this study, and of parts of the Fa-xian. Stephen Hodge has we shall look briefly at both. generously supplied these translations for my specific use in research articles such as this. Early in the sūtra (Tibetan version), in Chapter In the Faxian and Dharmaksema versions, Three, ‘Grief’, the Buddha is confronted by a another quality is found listed here: that the Self number of zealous Buddhist monks who are keen is “sovereign”, “self-governing” or “autonomous” practitioners of what we might term “absolutist (aiśvarya). Furthermore, Faxian includes the adjec- non-Self Buddhism” – i.e., the frequent meditative tive “unchanging”/“untransforming”/“non-mutating” cultivation of the notion that absolutely everything (aviparināma), while Dharmaksema also adds that is impermanent, characterised by suffering and the Self is “true” (satya). is “non-Self” (anātman). To our surprise, the Buddha It is sometimes claimed by scholars who does not praise his enthusiastic followers for comment on the doctrine of the Self in the Nirvāna their non-Self-ism, but rather castigates them for Sūtra that when the Buddha speaks of the ātman, “extremism”. He even dismisses as “mistaken and he is only doing so in a concessionary manner, as worthless” their proud non-Self meditations and a provisional, tactical manoeuvre for those students chides them for not understanding that meditation who are not yet ready to face up to the frightening upon impermanence, suffering and non-Self is enormity of the non-Self and Emptiness doctrines, “highly contingent” and needs to be safeguarded and that what he really wishes to say is that there from misapplication. actually exists no Self at all. We shall come back to According to the Buddha, the monks have the question of whether this text views itself as grasped merely the outer letters, the externalities, of provisional or ultimate in its doctrines a little later, his doctrine, but not its essential spirit or inner but for now, it needs to be emphasised that for the meaning. They have fallen victim to an extreme and Buddha to assert something to be satya and tattva inverted form of meditative practice in which they (both adjectives appear alongside one another in view that which is Eternal as impermanent, that the Dharmaksema text) is tantamount to his insisting which is truly the Self as that which is non-Self, that that it truly is Real - not just seemingly real or which is utterly Blissful as suffering, and that which deceptively authentic. The term, tattva, embedded is truly Pure as that which is impure. They have in such a metaphysical verbal environment as failed to distinguish between what is of samsāra the present context - where rectification of a mis- (the changeful, reincarnational round) and what is of apprehended non-Self doctrine is centre-stage of Great Nirvāna (mahā-nirvāna or mahā-parinirvāna). discussion – would seem to suggest a genuine, Samsāra is non-Self-thus far the monks are right. ultimate Reality, rather than some provisional, But they have committed a serious metaphysical metaphorical notion or accommodating make-shift blunder-the Buddha indicates-by ascribing samsaric simulacrum of Truth. qualities and characteristics to the non-samsaric, Let us consider a number of the other epithets to unconditioned Nirvana, indeed to the Buddha applied to the True Self in the passage just quoted. himself. For while everything samsaric is rightly First is the notion of the “eternity” or “permanence” labelled as “non-Self”, the Buddha reveals in the of the Buddha (who is, we must remember, the course of the sūtra that he, as the Dharmakāya (body True Self, according to this scripture). The Sanskrit of Truth), is nothing less than eternal Self (ātman) term, nitya, forcefully expresses the idea of eternal itself. In the “Grief” chapter, the Buddha explicates continuance and perpetual persistence throughout what he means by ‘Self’, eternality, happiness, and all time and beyond. The Self that is nitya is not just purity: real for a million years or even a million kalpas (aeons). It is real and lasting always. The Self’ signifies the Buddha; ‘eternal’ So central is this concept of the nityatā or signifies the dharmakāya [ultimate Body eternity of the Buddha in the Mahāparinirvāna of Truth]; ‘happiness’ signifies Nirvana; Sūtra that the Buddha at one point refers to this and ‘pure’ is a synonym for the Dharma. scripture as “the great sūtra of the Buddha’s eternity” (Hodge, 2006, p. 39) (nityatā) (Hodge, 2006, p. 141, Chapter 17, “The Bodhisattva”). Perpetual Buddhic Reality lies at The Buddha declares that it is in fact untrue to the heart of the message which this sūtra seeks say that all dharmas [phenomena] are non-Self, and, to communicate, as an antidote to the prevalent in the Dharmaksema translation, he declares that Buddhist notion of universal change, flux and death. “in truth there is the Self [ātman] in all dharmas” Buddhas, by contrast, know of no cessation: “the (Yamamoto/Page, 1999, Vol. 1, p.46). Offering a Tathāgata [Buddha] has no death” (Hodge, 2006, rare characterisation of what this Self in fact is, the Chapter 16, “The Analogy of the Moon”, p. 131); Buddha states: and “do not harbour the idea that Tathāgata-Arhat- Samyak-Sambuddhas [utterly perfect buddhas] ever The Self (ātman) is reality (tattva), the reach an end! … You should understand that the Self is permanent (nitya), the Self is Tathāgata [i.e. Buddha] is unchanging, stable and virtue (guna), the Self is eternal eternal” the Buddha insists (Hodge, 2006, Chapter (śāśvatā), the Self is stable (dhruva), the Five, “Long Life”, p. 48.) The Buddha’s physical form Self is peace (siva). (Hodge, 2006, will die, that is true; but that physically manifested Chapter Four, “Grief”, p. 40). body is in any case deceptive and impermanent, the Buddha says. He himself, in contrast, as the True knowing and utterly free mind, the “transcendental Self will not reach any end or expiration. awareness” - lokkottara-jñāna – which the Buddha Closely linked to the concept of nityatā are the elsewhere in the sūtra links to the Self. ideas of immovable, unshakeable fixedness or firm- So the True Self is revealed by the Buddha in ness (dhruva) and “unchangingness” (aviparināma). this important excursus on authentic Selfhood to be The notion of aviparināma is found in both Faxian and that totally self-governing, sovereign foundation or Dharmaksema in the passage we are considering. ground of Reality which is untrammelled by change Whereas Faxian uses it in its naked and unmodified and unmarked by mutation and which endures form, however, the Dharmaksema text combines eternally, utterly unassailable by death. The sūtra it with the term, āśraya (“basis”, “ground”, “body” or also (in its somewhat later chapters) intimately links “foundation”), to create the compound, āśraya- this Buddhic Reality to the Tathāgata-dhātu, Buddha- aviparināma. Thus the “foundational body” which is dhātu, or Tathāgata-garbha, the ‘Buddha-Womb’ as the Self is here asserted to be changeless – in other the immanent essence of Buddhahood.