The Third Precept

MY ESSAY ON THE FIFTH PRECEPT gained the most ever comments of any post on this blog. So I thought I might continue that theme with an analysis of the third precept.

Kāmesu micchācāra veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi

I undertake the training principle of abstaining
from wrong behaviour with respect to pleasure.

This precept, like the fifth precept, excites a lot of emotion, perhaps because kāma is usually translated as 'sex' or 'sexual desire', though this is only one aspect of the word in Pāli. However PED does suggest that it is cognate with the English word whore, which originally meant 'lover', via the Gothic hōrs. In both Pāli and Sanskrit the word kāma fundamentally refers to the pleasures of the senses, to the hedonic pleasures. Of course sex is amongst the more intense sense pleasures. The use of the form kāmesu is interesting - it is a locative plural - as a literal rendering would be 'amongst pleasures'.

I wrote about micchā in one of my earlier blog posts. Contrasted with sammā (Sanskrit samyak) it means 'to go against the flow' - a metaphor drawn from the serpent-like coils of the river making it's way across the plains. It is combined with the word cāra from √car 'to move'. The IE root is *√kwel 'to roll, to move around, wheel'. In comes into Latin as colere 'to frequent, dwell in, cultivate' hence E. cultivate, colonise (L. colonus); and cult which originally meant 'tended'. The IE root also gives us the Greek polos ‘axis’, hence E. pole-star, north-pole. The Pāli cāra is an action noun meaning "walking, going, doing, behaviour". So kāmesu micchācāra is literally 'going the wrong way amongst the pleasures of the senses', or perhaps 'running amok in pleasure'.

So why do we tend to think of kāma in terms of sex? The suttas themselves already explain the third precept in terms of sex (AN 10.176, PTS v.266)

Kāmesumicchācāraṃ pahāya, kāmesumicchācārā paṭivirato hoti yā tā māturakkhitā piturakkhitā mātāpiturakkhitā bhāturakkhitā bhaginirakkhitā ñātirakkhitā gottarakkhitā dhammarakkhitā sasāmikā saparidaṇḍā antamaso mālāguḷaparikkhittāpi, tathārūpāsu na cārittaṃ āpajjitā hoti.

Giving up going the wrong way amongst the pleasures of the senses, he abstains from going the wrong way amongst the pleasures of the senses: he has no sexual intercourse [1] [with a women] who is under the protection (rakkhita) of mother, or father, or both mother and father, or brother, or sister, or relatives, or clan, rightly protected, married, or one forbidden by law [2], nor even betrothed girls. [3]

The context is a discussion between the Buddha and Cunda on the 'ten purities' (soceyyā) - which are also called 'the ten good actions' (dasa-kusala-kamma), and in the Triratna Order 'the ten precepts'. We see Indian morality of some bygone era here - women were not (wholly) autonomous, and were usually considered to be under a man's protection. One word for 'husband' was pati, which means both 'protector' and 'provider' and is cognate with English words such as pastor, pasture, and foster; and with food, forage and pantry; but also with potent, power and posse.

Viewing the third precept in terms of sex is reinforced in the Pāli Vinaya. For instance in the Alagaddūpama Sutta (MN 22) a monk called Ariṭṭha doesn't accept the Buddha's instruction that the pursuit of pleasure (kāma) is an obstacle to the spiritual life though it is not explained how that played out in his life. In Vinaya version of this story (Vin ii.25-27) Ariṭṭha is expelled from the saṅgha for refusing to renounce his wrong view. Modern exegetes assume that this was because he was having sex, even though this is not explicit in either the Alagaddūpama Sutta or the Vinaya, presumably because few other types of behaviour warrant such a severe sanction. Where the rule is codified (Vin iv.133-6) Thanissaro comments "…although the origin story makes clear that it refers at the very least to the sexual act." The Buddhist Monastic Code (chp. 8.7 #68) [my italics].

The Buddhist tradition has been largely taught and passed on by celibate men for most of it's history, and not surprisingly, it often reflects the concerns of a community of celibates. So we have a double job here in translating the precept: on one hand we have to render the actual words, with the Pāli context in mind; and on the other we need to take into account our own social mores and lifestyles to make the precept relevant to us, here and now.

In the Triratna community when we chant the precepts we follow them with positive counterparts in English, composed by the founder of our Order, Sangharakshita. The counterpart for the third precept is:

With stillness, simplicity and contentment, I purify my body.

Here we get to the nub of it. It's not so much about sex, as about our relationship to sensuous pleasures. While negatively we avoid intoxication with the sense pleasures; positively we actively seek equanimity and contentment which 'purifies' us. The point is not moralistic in the narrow sense, but aimed at preparing our minds for developing insight. A troubled or disturbed mind is not the right preparation for insight, which requires us to be still and calm, and able to stay that way for longish periods at a stretch.


The Third Precept in Practice.

In my blog post on the fifth precept I dwelt on the negative effects of alcohol from a number of different points of view. I want to look at the third precept from a different perspective. I see the precepts as attempts to make us reflect on the consequences of our actions. Often we must do this in retrospect, but as we get more experience we can usually become more pro-active. In the west we live in a glut of sensory stimulation - with the internet, the media, advertising, gross surpluses of food and ever present sexual imagery. In our world it is hard not to be intoxicated with sensory input, and in any case such intoxication is glorified - we could say that hedonism is the real religion of the West at present. So, without without attempting to be comprehensive or exhaustive, I want to look at a few ways of working with the third precept which illustrate the principle.


Modesty

These days the trend in society seems to be to be to do whatever you want with no thought for the impact of your actions on others. This is evident in the ways we dress. Recently I watched a series of documentaries on young Amish people and one of the concerns expressed by the girls was not to stimulate sexual tension in the boys through dressing immodestly. I though this was quite wise, though it should work both ways. These days we are bombarded by sexual imagery, and dress codes tend towards flaunting of bodies and emphasising erogenous zones, with consequent (often intentional) stimulation of sexual desire. I find this quite difficult myself, quite counter-productive in terms of cultivating contentment. We could usefully reinvigorate modesty as a virtue for both men and women. I think this would foster contentment in society generally. It doesn't mean driving sex underground, but I do think we need to counter the prevailing trend of explicit sex everywhere you look.

However we should not confuse modesty with piety. Recently I listened to a Muslim woman on the radio claiming that wearing the hijab (a covering that leaves only the face showing) was liberating because of the gaze of men, and being judged by her looks. However in her case it meant that she, and her children, had to regularly endure verbal abuse while walking the streets. I do not for a minute condone such ignoble behaviour, but I thought she failed to see that her dress code was not modest, that on a British street a woman covered head to toe with only her face showing stands out. She was not being modest by the standards of the society she lives in, she was being ostentatious and drawing attention to her piety. It would be relatively easy to dress down and not be noticed, but in sticking to a medieval Arabian dress code she achieved precisely the opposite. I often think this of Buddhist monks. The robe was once the most humble of garments, rough cloth stained with mud to reduce it's value to nothing. But monks' robes are not modest or humble by western standards, and along with the elaborate titles that monks often adopt, seem to operate as a status symbol.


Sex in the Saṅgha

I want to say something about sex in the sangha since it's always a hot topic, and the Buddhist blogosphere has seen a lot of writing about it in the latter part of 2010. There is a disturbing tendency in the blogosphere to assume that teachers bear all of the responsibility in the relationship with their students. It's as though when we become Buddhists, when we begin to learn from a teacher, we abdicate our hard earned adult status, hand over responsibility for ourselves to these people. It seems to be assumed that the spiritual student-teacher relationship is aptly characterised in terms of unequal power. The contemporary discourse (influenced by a variety of ideologies especially the big four: Freudian, Foucauldian, Feminist, and Marxist) which characteres all relationships in terms of power goes unchallenged - the political equivalent would be an unquestioning acceptance of a Marxist doctrine that history is all about class struggle, or a Feminist argument that history is all about the oppression of women by men. These are partial views and in conflict with each other (though of course there are Marxist-Feminists as well!). Where is the critical thinking about relationships, especially teacher/pupil relationships and what they signify in Buddhist terms? Some writers have problematised seeing spiritual teachers as saints, which on one hand is useful, but on the other seems to play into a reactionary anti-authoritarian stances taken by many. The extremes are unhelpful.

Of course there are teachers who exploit their kudos to get sexual partners. But I'm also aware that students sometimes seduce teachers, or attempt to. I know that some people use sex, or the offer of it, to manipulate others. I know that people enter into sexual relationships with teachers with the expectation of receiving special status or favours. At the very least we often send out mixed signals. On the other hand I'm also aware of sexual relationships between adults students and teachers, or between sangha members, that have come entirely unproblematic. The complexity of human sexual behaviour is left out of internet discussions of sex within sanghas.

The recent responses to accusations of impropriety seem to bear none of the hallmarks of a Buddhist approach to deluded people - there is little evidence of compassion in some of the remarks being made; or at best they are strongly partisan against authority figures. On the other hand the Western values of justice are not served either - there is no day in court, no impartial weighing of the evidence, and people accused of sexual misconduct are not innocent until proven guilty. The right to a fair trial (affirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Constitution) is suspended and something more like mob justice seems to dominate the proceedings.


Eating and Food

Recently I watched the film All the Presidents Men (1976), and apart from the content of the film one thing that struck me is that there were no fat people in it. I don't just mean the stars, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, I mean the supporting actors and the extras as well. I did not see one fat person. Nowadays so many of us are not just fat, but obese. I've written about the so-called 'obesity epidemic' in the UK. For the vast majority being fat means that we eat too much, and we eat the wrong kinds of foods (allowing that for some it will be a genuine medical condition). I don't advocate one meal a day or a starvation diet, but the third precept does require us to think about what we eat and why. I myself have become over-weight in the last few years and in trying to lose weight recently I have noticed a very distinct difference between hunger and craving. Eating just enough to satisfy the former is quite wholesome, responding to the latter by eating only increases dissatisfaction. It's a simple proposition, though difficult to follow through on.


Garbage In, Garbage Out

One of Sangharakshita's best known aphorisms is that Triratna Order members should "reduce input". This is related to the third precept. Constant stimulation, constant over stimulation is not good for us - and I think rising levels of mental health problems in the Western World, not to mention malaises like chronic fatigue and repetitive strain injuries, reflect this. Being ethical is it's own reward in many ways, but it also helps to prepare the mind for meditation. Over-stimulation leads to restlessness; or cycling between restlessness and torpor. By reducing the amount of input - sensory stimulation - we create a space to wind down, to allow our level of emotional arousal to return to normal. A lot of contemporary entertainment - and in this I include all forms of media including so-called 'news' - is aimed at stimulating a narrow set of emotions: fear, disgust, and anger. It's quite a pernicious influence. It's best to avoid artificially stimulating these emotions, because a mind disturbed by them is not a happy mind. I noticed after my four month ordination retreat that I could no longer stomach any movie violence. I became aware that when I watched ersatz violence, I responded as if the violence was real to some extent. On the other hand I notice that watching a wholesome comedy has a very positive effect on my mood and chronic pain.

There's a kind of story we moderns tell ourselves: that we must, through art and entertainment, confront ourselves with the most brutal and bestial side of human life. We must not flinch from depicting, and consuming the depictions of, the worst kinds of violence, the darkest side of human nature. I think this is bullshit. Art can uplift us, it can communicate a sense of positive value, it can help us to refine our sensibilities and make us more aware of others, and of virtue. Most of us don't need to wallow in the negative emotions, we need more experience of the positive emotions. I do accept that our shadow side, unacknowledged and unexamined, can be a problem, but do we go about dealing with it in the best way - aren't practices like the mindfulness of breath and mettābhavanā the way to go?


Conclusion

I think the main thing is to take the time to observe the cause and effect of stimuli. Does a particular kind of stimulus, or a particular activity lead to more contentment, or to less? Does it lead to a reduction in craving or an increase? We Buddhists need to address our constant intoxication with the senses. We have an imperative to approach life this way. We're simply not going to make progress without seriously asking, and soberly answering, these questions. As I always say "there are no rules in Buddhism", but what we do have is the stark realisation that every action of body, speech and mind has consequences, and that we ourselves are responsible for the consequences of our actions. We are responsible for the state of our mind, not matter what life throws at us.

~~oOo~~

Notes

1. cārittaṃ āpajjitā 'going to meet with', a Pāli euphemism for sex!
   
2. Nyanatiloka translates saparidaṇḍā as "female convict", but I follow PED "a cert. class of women, the use of whom renders a person liable to punishment". Prostitutes are not mentioned, though they certainly existed.
   
3. mālāguḷaparikkhittāpi 'under the protection of a garland', where offering a garland was a proposal of marriage.

image: psyche and eros.

What is Important?

THIS IS MY PARAPHRASE of the Cūḷamālunkya Sutta (M 63) in contemporary idiom and context.

Once there was a man who had been brought up a Christian but gave it up, and then later on became a Buddhist. He did his best to live the spiritual life with help from a Buddhist mentor; he became a vegetarian, gave up drinking and meditated every day. He picked up and started to using the Buddhist jargon. A couple of times a year he went on a retreat for a week. It felt good to belong, the teachings seem to make sense, and he did seem to be happier than before. But some doubts from his religious upbringing continued to plague him, and his pious Buddhism didn't seem to help. He read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, but he just could not decide if God existed or not. The Sunday supplement of his newspaper kept talking about the debate between militant atheists and Christians, not to mention Muslims; he knew he didn't believe in creationism, but wasn't it possible that there was some intelligent designer? And what if there was? He went round in circles trying to reason his way through it, and became completely distracted. Eventually he decided that he had to know the answer to this question before he could carry on with his practice of ethics and meditation.

So he went to see his Buddhist mentor and laid out the problem. Then he said: "My question is this - does God exist or does God not exist? I need to know one way or the other, else I'll never be able to be whole-hearted about my practice. You're a wise person. If you know then just say so, one way or the other. Put me out of my misery or I'll have to go off and find another mentor who does know."

His mentor asked "when you started to learn about ethics and meditation at our Buddhist Centre did we say any about God? Did we promise to say anything about God? Is there anything about God in our literature?"

"Well no," replied the man, "you didn't, and there isn't."

"And when you came to the Buddhist centre, did you originally come to learn about God?"

"No. I came because I was unhappy and a friend told me that meditation would help me. And I liked the people and the vibe, so I hung around. Actually, not talking about God was one of the attractions."

"So, why are you now asking about God?" His mentor asked. "Why is God suddenly relevant?

"Look, the mentor said, "you would wait a long time for me to have anything to say about God. You'd die long before I said anything on that subject. If you are waiting to practice ethics and meditation until you know all about God, then you're like a man who has been shot, and refuses treatment until he knows what kind of gun shot the bullet, and what kind of bullet was used; you want to know the identity of the shooter, his race and religious beliefs, before allowing a surgeon to remove the bullet and save your life. You will die before you can know the answers to your questions. Then what?"

"Whether or not you believe God exists, whether or not God actually exists, there is birth, old-age, sickness and death; there is sorrow and disappointment; there is pain and suffering. Look at how many people believe in God. Has that changed the amount of suffering in the world at all? Has it perhaps even made things worse? Whatever your opinion about God and it wouldn't change the existential situation anyway. You'll still suffer. After many centuries the fact of millions of people believing in God has not changed this. So why get all stirred up about what to believe? What you believe is not as important as how you live, because how you live really makes a difference."

"I can definitely help you with disappointment and suffering. If you want a way to deal with disappointment once and for all, to put an end to sorrow, distress and depression; and to put an end to the constant repetition of pointless lives (presuming that you believe in rebirth) then I do have something useful for you. This method is really helpful, and it leads to greater happiness without any reference to God. There seems no limit to the improvements that you can experience through this method - at least I haven't found any limit yet. This method leads to disentangling yourself from the things that cause the problem; to sobering up from being drunk on sensuous pleasures; to turning your back on that which causes you constant disappointment once and for all. Once you understand why you get disappointed, then the way ahead is fairly clear, though of course it's not always an easy path."

The mentor said all this and the man took it away and mulled things over. After a while he realised that he did not need to know about God, and he was delighted to be relieved of this burden. He got on with his practice, and made progress, and soon forgot all about God.

~~oOo~~

image of God from dumb.com.

Writing in India

For some time I have wanted to write a review of an article by Johannes Bronkhorst, now almost 30 years old.[1] The title is unprepossessing - "Some observations on the Padapāṭha of the Ṛgveda" - but the conclusions are interesting. The first part of his article recaps an earlier article that discusses the relative ages of the two forms of the Ṛgveda text. These two forms are Saṃhitāpāṭha and Padapāṭha. The Saṃhitāpāṭha (Sp) is the text as it is spoken. Sanskrit writing very early on recorded a great deal more of the spoken language than does our English script. Particularly as we run words together in spoken language we change the sounds subtly. In Vedic these changes - known as sandhi 'junctures' - are meticulously notated in the written text. By contrast the Padapāṭha (Pp) is more like English writing in that it records only the words themselves. The Pp is generally supposed to have been composed as an aide de memoir to help keep the oral tradition accurate. The extant Pp is attributed to Śākalya who's dates are uncertain.

I cannot reproduce Bronkhorst's complex arguments for the relative dating of Sp and Pp, but he concludes that the recension of the Pp that has come down to us is older than the recension of the Sp. Bronkhorst, as is his way, tells us his conclusion at the beginning: "I know of one plausible explanation: the Padapāṭha of the Ṛgveda was written down from its beginning" (p.184); and then offers his evidence.

The first evidence I have already mentioned: that the way we speak English is like the Sp, and the way we write it is like the Pp. He is suggesting that the relationship between Sp and Pp is just like the relationship between spoken and written English. The second is that the Pp contains some signs such as the daṇḍa (punctuation mark) and avagraha (similar to an apostrophe for noting elisions: like n't for not) which only really make sense in writing - they have no phonetic value of their own, and do not affect pronunciation generally. Like English punctuation they make reading easier. Bronkhorst also mentions a rule in Pāṇini's grammar which relates to the use of iti in more or less the same way as Western scholars use sic. He says:

"Pāṇini puzzles over the question of how the [manuscript] of the Ṛgveda (= Padapāṭha) must be read such that a correct recitation (= Saṃhitāpāṭha) is the result." (p.185)

This suggests that Pāṇini is likely to have been working with a written text.

As Bronkhorst himself says, there is no unanimity on the date for the beginning of writing in India. Bronkhorst himself opts for the case made by Bühler [2] who places the date at about 800 BCE.

"If we accept Bühler's ideas, and estimate that it took the Brahmans about a century to adopt the alphabet and adjust it to their needs, the earliest possible date for [the written text] becomes 700 [BCE]. A later date must however be prepared." (p.186)

Perhaps Bronkhorst reflects the state of knowledge at the time he was writing, though it is hard to imagine 78 years having passed with no contribution. In any case the subject has definitely moved on since Bronkhorst's article. Compare Richard Salomon in Indian Epigraphy [3]:

Bühler's suggestion of an early date of ca. 800 BC, or possibly earlier, for the 'introduction of prototypes of the Brāhma letters' in India is hardly plausible in light of modern knowledge, but more cautious estimates such as that of A. B Kieth [4] that 'the real development of writing belongs in all likelihood to the fifth century' are not unreasonable. (p.13)

Salomon points out that both the literary and epigraphical evidence is "vague or inconclusive" (p.12). It is rather more conventional to date writing in Indian to the 4th century BCE because this is the earliest date that can be confirmed by inscriptions minus a century. [5] (This practice of adding or subtracting a century to allow things to develop is pretty standard for scholars, though I sometimes wonder how justified it is!). However Salomon (p. 12) notes that pottery shards with Brahmī script writing found in Sri Lanka in the 1990's are variously dated to the 6th-4th century BCE, with most recent articles opting for the later end of the spectrum (i.e. towards the 4th century). [6]

Writing did not develop spontaneously in India, but was adapted from outside models. There is ample evidence for contact between India and the rest of the world. Already by the time the Buddha was born (ca 480 BCE) the Achaemanids were exacting tribute from the north-west of India (as far as the Indus River), and possibly were a substantial presence. As proof of contact Bronkhorst cites the Biblical mention of aloe-wood in Numbers (xxiv.6) which may date from between 900-722 BCE. Unfortunately the materials used for writing in India were not always durable, and stone inscriptions were not widely used until the reign of Aśoka (who may well have been imitating the Persian kings in his inscriptions).

The earliest form of writing we know about is the Kharoṣṭhī script which is clearly modelled on the Aramaic script used by Achaemanid Persian administrators. The Brahmī script is less clearly modelled on an outside script, but most scholars still see a relationship to Aramaic. I accept the arguments of Steve Farmer and Michael Witzel that the Indus Valley script is a form of graphic communication, but does not represent language - i.e. it is not writing, but similar to graphic signs in Sumeria about the same time.[7]

The received tradition is that (religious) Indians were not interested in writing because sacred texts were memorised and passed on orally. Though of course this does not explain why merchants and administrators would not use it, especially when they were in direct contact with cultures that did use writing much earlier. Although the evidence for an absolute date for writing in India, after more than a century of study is, in Salomon's words "disappointingly inconclusive"; and although Bronkhorst cannot establish a relative date for the Ṛgveda Padapāṭha, except in relation to the Saṃhitāpāṭha, we see in his article a contradiction of the old chestnut that ancient Indians were not interested in writing. The Ṛgveda was written down early on, probably by the time of Pāṇini, which suggests that writing may well have been in use during the life time of the Buddha, or not so very long afterwards. The writing down of the Buddhist canon in the 1st century BCE, therefore, was not the radical innovation that it is sometimes portrayed as. As the recent discovery tells us, writing may have been in use in Sri Lanka for 3 or 4 centuries by that time.

What Bronkhorst shows is that the relationship to writing may have been more complex, both at any give time and across time, than we generally think.

~~0~~

Notes

1. Bronkhorst, Johannes. 1982. "Some observations on the Padapāṭha of the Ṛgveda." Indo-Iranian Journal. 24: 181-189.
2. Bühler, Johan Georg. Indian Paleography, edited by John Faithful Fleet. Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1904. (Reprinted by Oriental Books Reprint Copr. 1980)
   
3. Salomon, Richard. Indian Epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages. Oxford University Press, 1998. [This is an excellent and authoritative guide to the history of writing in India]
   
4. Salomon is citing from E.J. Rapson (ed.) 1922. Cambridge History of India, vol. 1 'Ancient India'. Cambridge University Press, p.126.
   
5. e.g. A. L. Basham. The Wonder that was India. 3rd revised edition. Rupa & Co. 1967. Writing is down played to the extent of not being mentioned in many histories of India, e.g. Stein, Burton. A History of India. Blackwell,1998; Thapar, Romila. The Penguin History of Early India : from Origins to AD 1300. Penguin, 2002.
6. I've seen the 6th century figure seized upon and used as evidence of Brahmī being invented in Sri Lanka.
   
7. A good place to start is Farmer, Steve. A One-Sentence Refutation of the Indus-Script Myth. 2005-2008; also excellent is Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat, and Michael Witzel, The collapse of the Indus-script thesis: The myth of a literate Harappan civilization. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 11-2 (13 Dec. 2004): 19-57.

image: Ṛgveda Saṃhitāpāṭha 1.1-2.

Philological Odd & Ends V

MANY WORDS HAVE INTERESTING STORIES associated with them. This is a fifth set of terms which have caught my eye as having some interest, but which did not rate a whole post on their own. There is a list of other terms I've written about at the bottom of this page.

On this page: megha, mañju, saṅgha

megha

Megha is straightforward enough in use: it means "cloud". It's a common element in Buddhist names, and titles of texts. However the etymology is interesting. The Proto-Indo-European root is *√meigh 'to urinate'. The root appears in a number of IE languages: in Greek (with a prefix) omichlē 'vapour'; Latin micturīre, mingere 'to urinate'; Middle Dutch mist 'mist'; Old Saxon mistil 'mistletoe'; English mist, mizzle (like drizzle), mistletoe, (and from Latin) micturate. Note that down the Greek and Germanic lines it is also associated with weather phenomena, whereas in Latin it sticks to urination.

In Sanskrit the root becomes √mih (3rd person singular: mehati) - PIE 'gha' sounds regularly become 'ha' in Sanskrit (see saṅgha below). In Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.1 the sacrificial horse (aśva-medhya) is related to the entire world and one aspect of this is: yad mehati tad varṣati '[the horse] urinates, it rains'. There is a present-participle meghamāna 'urinating; sprinkling' which has a vestigial gha, and I suspect that the word for cloud may be a contraction from this that became lexicalised (i.e. became a word in it's own right). Perhaps we should not be surprised at this connection as it is common, and not even very vulgar, to refer to rain as "pissing down".

PED seems confused when it says that megha is not from Sanskrit √mih but from PIE *√meigh, since √mih derives from *√meigh according to every other authority. In an amusing example of Victorian squeamishness Whitney can't bring himself to use the word 'urinate' and glosses √mih with the Latin mingere 'urinate' in his book of Sanskrit roots and forms.

mañju

Here is an example of how difficult it can be to sort out the etymology of a word. It's not until we consult a very wide range of sources that we can triangulate something sensible. (I consulted 9 dictionaries in 6 languages).

In Sanskrit and Pāli the word means 'beautiful, lovely, charming, pleasant, sweet.' Apparently related to S. & P. maṅgala 'lucky, auspicious, prosperous.' Explained by traditional lexicons as deriving from √mang (not included in Whitney though). The Indo-European root appears to be *√meng. The various sources explain this different ways. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams) [EIEC] suggests a root *meng meaning 'charm, deceive' but only tentatively groups the listed cognates together. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (Calvert Watkins) [AHD] define *meng 'to furbish'. The Online Indo-European Lexicon (Jonathan Slocum) [OIEL] has 'to make pretty, beautify' but offers no further information.

PED and EIEC link the root to Greek mágganon 'to charms; play tricks' (though OED defines this word as 'engine of war, axis of pulley'. None of the Greek dictionaries I consulted confirm this! In fact the words related to mágganon look suspiciously related to mageuō 'magic' (they mostly have a single 'g')

AHD further links *√meng 'furbish' with Latin mangō 'furbisher, gem polisher, swindler' > English monger (as in fish-monger). In Greek AHD links to manganon 'magic charm, contrivance, engine of war' > mangonel. The Online Etymology Dictionary links monger to Gk. manganon 'contrivance, means of enchantment,' from PIE base *√mang- 'to embellish, dress, trim.' I can't find either manganon or *√mang in my Greek Dictionaries (is it a derived form?), though Eric Partridge Origins agrees and adds 'to deceive by means of beauty' to the list of meanings of the root.

Meanwhile mañju is also said to mean 'gentle, soft' in Buddhist names. This is due to the influence of Tibetan. The Tibetans render manñju as 'jam (འཇམ). So S. Mañjughoṣa becomes Tibetan Jamyang ('jam dbyangs/འཇམ་དབྱངས) 'gentle voiced'. [thanks to Maitiu O'Ceileachair for the correct Tibetan spelling.]

Saṅgha

Here is a word very commonly used in Buddhism, but with a rather confused etymology. Even the spelling is confused. MW and Apte spell it saṃgha, whereas PED spells it saṅgha. All authorities agree that the word is prefixed with sam– and under most circumstances a nasal followed by gha would change to ṅ, i.e saṅgha. I think I know why it might not in this case, but we need to look more closely at the etymology before attempting to explain it.

MW seems hardly plausible in deriving saṃgha from sam– + √han. That root means ‘to kill, to strike’ and is clearly inappropriate here. PED derives saṅgha from sam– + √hṛ; where √hṛ means ‘to take, bear, carry’ and the combination means ‘to bring together, unite, collect’. MW also has an entry for saṃ√hṛ with more or less the same meaning. At first glance sam√hṛ works semantically but leaves us with the morphological problem of deriving gha from hṛ.

MW compares √hṛ to Greek kheir (χείρ) ‘the hand’ but, again, he may have this wrong. Gk. kheir gives us the English chiromancy ‘divination by examining the hand’, and surgeon. It stems from a PIE root *√ghesr ‘hand’. It is more likely √hṛ (harati ‘to carry, to take) is from PIE *√gher ‘grab, grip, seize’. This then gives us a Greek cognate khortos 'enclosed space'; from which comes the Latin hortos and E. horticulture (c.f. Welsh garth ‘fold, enclosure’; Irish gort ‘crop, field’); and Gk. khoros > E. choir, chorus. In addition the Germanic cognate *gurdjan > E. girdle, yard, orchard. Interestingly there is a L. parallel from PIE *ko(m)-ghṛ (= S. sam√hṛ) > L. cohors > E. cohort, court. This suggests √hṛ is the correct root, and that the gha is archaic. This happens in other words, for instance √han, mentioned above. The 3rd person singular 'he kills' is hanati, but the plural 'thy kill' is ghnanti, the perfect form is jaghāna; and aorist aghāni. This may explain why Sanskrit dictionaries insist on the spelling saṃgha, because the root is hṛ and sam–hṛ > saṃharati; though my understanding is that the sandhi should apply and saṅgha is the more correct spelling.

So we might speculate an archaic (and unattested) Sanskrit form *ghṛ, or perhaps *ghar. There is a Sanskrit root √ghṛ with a causative in √ghar, but with a different meaning. Then just as √gaṃ can form a suffix -ga with the meaning 'going' (a kvi suffix, often adjectival in sense); ghṛ/ghar must at one time have formed a suffix -gha.

We know that √han forms a kvi suffix -gha (with the sense of an action noun 'killing'), and it may have been this that MW was thinking of. Perhaps he saw possible relationship to PIE *√gwhen: 1. to hit, to strike; 2. to swell. As an aside the first sense has an Old Norse derivative gandálfr lit. 'staff-elf', i.e 'a wizard', source for Tolkien's Gandalf. It may be that MW had the second in mind. However the form is poorly attested in practice - only a few words survive from this root. It is thought to be related to the Greek euthenos (εὐθηνέω) 'to flourish'. OIEL also relates it to āhanaḥ, but MW defines this in line with √han 'to strike'. I think two Pāli words may be related to gwhen(2): ghaṭa can have the sense of 'multitude' as well as 'vessel'; similarly ghaṭṭan covers both 'strike' and 'combination'. In Sanskrit MW has ghaṭana 'connection, union with'; Macdonell has ghaṭā 'multitude, host, troop'. These point to the root √ghaṭ which Whitney glosses as 'strive', which MW expands with 'to be in connection with, or united with'. I've already mentioned that √han has a kvi suffix form -gha. This would give saṃgha 'united, striving together'. This is all quite speculative, and since we don't have MW we can't know what his (and his subsequent editors) thinking was.

Just to reiterate I think we can best understand saṅgha as deriving from sam- + √hṛ, with gha being kvi suffix, the 'g' being a legacy from the PIE root *√gher. The correct spelling, taking into account Sanskrit sandhi rules, is saṅgha; though I think we are stuck with saṃgha as well.

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See also

• Philological Odds and Ends I: tathāgata, sūtra, śramaṇa, loka, gahapati/gṛhapati.
• Philological Odds and Ends II: cakravartin, cintāmaṇi, yoniso manasikara, pāramitā, etymology.
• Philological Odds and Ends III: bodhisattva, anagārikā, samyak/mithyā.
• Philological Odds and Ends IV: vrata, mitra, kavi.

Action and Intention

IN THIS POST I'M REVISITING an old favourite of mine. I mention one of the phrases in this sutta - cetanāhaṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi - on a regular basis. I've even done a commentary on it. Here I translate the section of the Discourse on Piercing - Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63 PTS A iii.414) - that contains the phrase and this sheds further light on the idea it is expressing. It came up recently on Elisa Freschi's blog sanscrite cogitare, sanscrite loqui in the comments on a post called 'Desire, cognition and action', looking at the role of intention and cognition in actions. The role of intention in actions naturally brought to mind the Buddha's equation of cetanā and kamma.

The Nibbedhika Sutta consists of an introduction and then several sections with the same form. It concerns correctly identifying certain things, their cause, their distinctiveness, their result, their cessation, and the way to make them cease. Clearly this format is an expansion on that used in the ariyasacca or truths of the nobles ones (dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, magga). The 'things' are: sensuous pleasure (kāma), sensations (vedanā), apperceptions (saññā), influxes (āsavā), action (kamma), disappointment (dukkha).

Translation [1]

Action should be known, the basis (nidāna-sambhava) for action should be known, the distinctiveness (vemattatā) of action should be known, the result (vipāka) of actions should be known, the cessation (nirodha) of action should be known, the way to bring about cessation of action (kamma-nirodha-gāminī paṭipada) should be understood. This was said, but why? I call action ‘intention’. Having thought/intended one acts, with body, speech, or mind.

And what is the basis for actions? Contact [between sense faculty and sense object] is the basis for actions.

And what is the distinctiveness of actions? There is the action to be experienced (vedanīyaṃ) in hell (niraya); the action to be experienced as an animal (tiracchānayoni); the action to be experienced in the domain of hungry ghosts (pettivisaya); the action to be experienced in the human realm (manussaloka); and the action to be experienced in the god realm (devaloka).

And what is the result of action? I say there are three kinds of result: to be experienced in this world (diṭṭhe-dhamme); in the next rebirth (upapajje); or in subsequent rebirths (aparāpariya). [2]

And how does action cease? It ceases with the cessation of contact. With the noble Eightfold-path (ariyo aṭṭḥaṅgiko maggo) being the way to bring about the cessation of action: perfect-vision, perfect intention, perfect speech, perfect action [3], perfect livelihood, perfect effort, perfect mindfulness, perfect concentration. [4]

Because of this a Noble Disciple knows action, its basis, its distinctiveness, its result, its cessation, and the way to bring about that cessation. He knows this piercing spiritual path for the cessation of action.

This is what was said, and why it was said.

A few comments. Firstly we have the sequence: contact > intention > action. This is descriptive not prescriptive; an outline of the process, rather than concrete definition. It highlights the aspects of our responses to the world which are important for the Buddhist project/object. [5] The important thing is that action is a response. As I said in my earlier commentary the underlying root of cetanā:

"...concerns what catches our attention on the one hand, and what we move towards on the other; or, what is on our minds, and what motivates us (emotions are what 'set us in motion')" - Ethics and Intention.

As humans we are flooded with sensory impressions, some of which gain our attention, some of which we respond to unconsciously. Broadly speaking we are either drawn towards or away from stimulus, and actions are how these tendencies play out in the mind, speech and body. The text presents the outcomes of actions in terms of various realms of rebirth: hell, animal, hungry-ghost, human, god. If we are uncomfortable with these as literal destinations - and let's face it, most of us Westerners are - we can perhaps see these as metaphors for moods in which our mental life takes place. [6] Either way the result is general, not specific - this important point is often lost sight of in discussion of karma, especially when people are looking for reasons that specific bad things happen to people. All you can really say is that kamma has meant a human rebirth - the details are not covered, though of course any rebirth in saṃsāra is by definition disappointing. There is no answer to the question "why me?"; one can only think in terms of "now what?"

The text's answer to "now what?" is to invoke the eight-fold path, i.e. having defined the problem in general terms it offers a generic solution. Still, the specific insight contained in the equation of kamma and cetanā is an interesting one to reflect on.

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Notes

1. Pāli text from CST.
   
2. c.f. Vism xix.14: "Thus there are four kinds of kamma: to be experienced in this world, to be experience on rebirth, to be experienced in some subsequent rebirth, and kamma which doesn’t ripen [because it is inhibited by a more potent kamma]." Tattha catubbidhaṃ kammaṃ – diṭṭhadhammavedanīyaṃ, upapajjavedanīyaṃ, aparāpariyavedanīyaṃ, ahosikammanti. See also PED s.v. ahosi-kamma.
3. i.e. action (kamma) ceases through acting perfectly (sammākammanta) - this kind of tautology does not seem to bother the author of the Pāli.
   
4. sammādiṭṭhi, sammāsaṅkappa, sammāvācā, sammākammanta, sammājīva, sammāvāyāma, sammāsati, sammāsamādhi. I follow Sangharakshita in translating the word samma (S. saṃyak) as perfect. I think 'right' reflects a bygone era, and if it ever conveyed the right impression it now seems a bit bloodless. I wrote about this word in Philological Odds and Ends III.
5. Project/Object was a term coined by Frank Zappa for his oeuvre when considering all it's various manifestations (including recording, live performances, interviews, writing, and film) considered as a whole. From our point of view it includes all the positive things that Buddhists do.
6. C.f. Trungpa and Freemantle. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Shambala, 1975. (esp. p.5-10); and Sangharakshita. A Guide to the Buddhist Path. Windhorse, 1990. (esp. 'The Six Realms." p.81 ff.).
   

Pāli Texts as Historical Sources

TRYING TO USE THE PĀLI CANON as an historical source presents many challenges. An important thread that I'd like to mention, but not go into this time, is the existence and understanding of physical - archaeological and epigraphical - evidence. Greg Schopen in particular has pointed to the discrepancies in the stories told by physical and textual evidence; and the incompleteness of any historical account which ignores the physical evidence (which at last count includes about 95% of Buddhist historiography). That said I want to look at a particular problem related to early Buddhist texts.

I have been researching the way that Brahmins are characterised in the suttas because I think recent discoveries make it worth looking at them again. It is interesting for instance to find that no Brahmin ever mentions ātman, nor equates ātman and brahman; and no belief in ātman is ever credited to a Brahmin; though lots of them seem to follow a cult of Brahmā. This is surprising given the received teaching that the Buddha taught anatta as a direct response to Brahmanical religious ideas. Here I want to show that the way that Brahmins are presented in the canon is more complex than Buddhists usually allow.

Esukārā Sutta (MN 96, M ii.180)

Tatridaṃ, bho gotama, brāhmaṇā brāhmaṇassa sandhanaṃ paññapenti bhikkhācariyaṃ; bhikkhācariyañca pana brāhmaṇo sandhanaṃ atimaññamāno akiccakārī hoti gopova adinnaṃ ādiyamāno'ti

Here, Mr Gotama, the Brahmins declare that the wealth (sandha) of the Brahmin, is wandering for alms (bhikkhācariyaṃ); and a Brahmin who neglects wandering for alms, is not doing their duty: they are [like] a guard taking the not given.

Subha Sutta (MN 99, M ii.197)

brāhmaṇā, bho gotama, evamāhaṃsu: gahaṭṭho ārādhako hoti ñāyaṃ dhammaṃ kusalaṃ, na pabbajito ārādhako hoti ñāyaṃ dhammaṃ kusalan'ti.

Brahmins speak thus Mr Gotama: "the householder is accomplished in the correct manner, the dhamma which is wholesome. The gone-forth (pabbajito) is not accomplished in the correct manner, in the dhamma which is wholesome".

These two passages characterise Brahmins in diametrically opposed terms. The context for both of these statements is a conversation between a Brahmin and the Buddha on the appropriateness of traditional Brahmin values: brahmaṇa here is not being used as a metaphor for the ideal Buddhist. Both discussions occur in Anāthapiṇḍika's park. Esukārī is concerned with class and status, while Subha is concerned with the best lifestyle for a Brahmin. Esukārī uses a term which I had not encountered before: bhikkhācariya. Clearly this is related to the familiar term bhikkhu. Bhikkhā means 'to beg, or to make one's living by begging'; and cariya literally means 'walking', or figuratively 'behaving or to make one's way'. This is the lifestyle the original Buddhist monks adopted before settling into monasteries. But, according to Subha, it is precisely the wrong way to be a good Brahmin.

Subha expands his description of a good Brahmin with a list of five qualities (dhamme): truth, asceticism, celibacy, study, and generosity (sacca, tapa, brahmacariya, ajjhena, cāga). The Buddha's subsequent critique of him is one that is used frequently, which is that no Brahmin living or dead has ever known for themselves the truth of their pronouncements. They are just words; the blind leading the blind. This approach is epitomised by the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13). I wonder how many Buddhists look at this text and have secret doubts about the path they extol, but have never personally witnessed? How can I authentically stand up declare nibbāṇa as the goal, when I have no experience of it?

There are a number of ways to look at this text-historical problem. Firstly we must consider the possibility that the Pāli texts contain no useful historical information, that they are just stories made up once Buddhism became established (which may not have been until much later than we usually think). In this view contradictions are meaningless or at best represent confusion on the part of the authors. This approach gets us nowhere. We know that not long after the time period the texts purport to be from there is definite physical evidence of a thriving Buddhist community. There is a history of Buddhism, and clearly Buddhist culture evolved over time. Being unprepared to simply give up, I think we must reject this position and proceed, though with caution.

We might take the less extreme position that the Pāli canon only tells us about the prejudices of the early Buddhists. This we must take more seriously. Clearly there is no attempt to be fair in portraying rival religious practitioners in Buddhist texts. There is quite a lot of invective against people who are ito bahiddhā 'outside the teaching'; just as other the texts of other religions seldom mention Buddhists in a positive light, and parody our beliefs. But amongst the early texts are insults directed at Buddhists by others. Unflattering descriptions of Buddhists are quite unlikely to have been made up ex-nihilo by Buddhists, and likely reflect actual criticisms, actual dialogues. But how far does the Buddhist distortion of what they write about extend? Are lay villagers or kings, for instance, portrayed equally poorly by Buddhist monks?

With these last questions in mind I think we can take one more step and say that the texts, while largely filled with Buddhist rhetoric, do give us glimpses of history. There is a big problem in deciding what time period the texts represent. Until we get more evidence this is an insurmountable problem. I do not agree with those who only accept the physical evidence, which suggests that the Canon may date from the 4th century AD, because I do accept that the texts themselves can tell us things. Surely for instance King Asoka would have been mentioned if he pre-dated the texts; though some use the same argument to say that if the Pāli canon existed that Asoka would surely have mentioned it. My view is that the Pāli texts were probably composed and developed over several centuries starting during the Buddha's lifetime which was in the 5th or 4th century BCE. They were probably collated at some later, as yet undetermined date, mostly like in stages so that the nikāyas represent originally distinct collections. The existence of three and four different versions of some stories, distributed through the nikāyas, with major and minor differences, suggests to me a number of parallel lineages which persisted separately for some time before being collected together.

There is no need to give a straw man such complexity, so it seems to me plausible that Brahmins did indeed experience the kinds of conflict I have highlighted above. On the one hand there was a conventional, conservative streak to Brahmin society which saw duty and family as central; while on the other there were those who saw leaving home as necessary. On the whole the Buddha clearly considered the latter a better option - he was in the jargon of our time 'anti-family' [1]. However in this discussion with Subha he makes it clear that the lifestyle is less important than the practice of the Dhamma - echoing Sangharakshita's oft quoted (and oft misunderstood) aphorism:

Commitment is primary; lifestyle is secondary.

Commitment is more important than lifestyle, but lifestyle is not unimportant. In any case this conflict between conservative and progressive forces amongst Brahmins may come as no surprise. We have evidence from Vedic sources of these changes. Some scholars have spoken of the internalisation or interiorisation of the sacrifice, that is the move to perform the sacrifice in imagination or as a meditation. Some of these ideas are expressed in the so-called āranyka or forest texts. These texts post-date the Vedas by some centuries, but predate Buddhism by a similar time span. Some parts of the Brahmin community embraced this change, while others resisted. Although there seems to be some ambiguity, it is likely that the jaṭila or 'matted hair' practitioners were Brahmins. I haven't yet found a Canonical text which makes this explicit, though in one the jaṭila is the follower of a Brahmin. The name often occurs in lists: ājivikā nigaṇṭha jaṭilā paribbājakā (c.f PED s.v. jaṭila; e.g. S i.77; see: How to Spot an Arahant) so we know they were not Jain, or Ājivika. The word jaṭila doesn't seem to appear in the Ṛgveda or the Atharvaveda, but does occur in the Mahābhārata.

Signe Cohen has suggested that the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad (BĀU) reflects a conflict between sages associated with the Yajurveda, in particular Yajñavalkya, and sages from other lineages particularly those associated with the Ṛgveda, from the point of view of YV sages.[2] Johannes Bronkhorst has argued that BĀU (along with other early Upaniṣads) shows Brahmins in the process of adopting ideas which originate amongst the samaṇa communities of North-Eastern India, the area he calls Greater Magadha. [3] Note that though we have some evidence of familiarity with Vedic ideas in Buddhist texts, that the important figure of Yajñavalkya is entirely absent. This evidence from non-Buddhist sources reinforces the view that the Pāli texts do record an historical conflict, though perhaps from some distance.

Brahmins themselves make up a large number of converts - both Esukārī and Subha make a formal conversion, though this could be a rhetorical device (one that was to become increasingly popular in Buddhist texts). We would expect some familiarity with Brahmanical culture and religion from a community with a substantial Brahmin membership. The fact that only more peripheral themes of the Upaniṣads and not the central themes are found in the Pāli texts is all the more difficult to understand in this light. Perhaps it suggests that converts came from the conservative rather than the progressive faction?

My view is that with many caveats, we can look at history through the lens of the Pāli texts, and that to some extent they tell us about the time of the Buddha, or at least that time and some centuries afterwards. In a short essay there is not time to deal adequately with the caveats, but I have at least made mention of the main ones. My conclusion is no doubt influenced by being Buddhist, and therefore being drawn to see the Buddha as an historical figure, rather than a legend. Though of course many legendary figures are based on real people. However it is important to note that any historical conclusions are by nature provisional and tentative. As a Buddhist I consciously (and happily) act as though the Buddha lived and taught; as a scholar I am required to be more cautious and doubtful. There is a definite tension.

For a more in-depth look at historical issues in texts this article is very illuminating:

Walters, Jonathan S. "Suttas as history: four approaches to the sermon on the noble quest (ariyapariyesana-sutta)." History of Religions 38(3) Feb 1999: p.247-284.

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Notes

1. Jesus was also quite anti-family. He is reported as saying, for example: "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Matt. 10:35); and "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)
2. Cohen, Signe. Text and Authority in The Older Upaniṣads. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
3. Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. Greater Magadha : studies in the culture of early India. Leiden : Brill.

image: wikimedia.

Erwin Schrödinger Didn't Have a Cat

image: Erwin Schrödinger

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
Richard Feynman. "What is Science?"
The Physics Teacher Vol. 7, issue 6 (1969)

"I think I can safely say that
nobody understands quantum mechanics."
Richard Feynman. The Character of Physical Law (1965)

~~~~

SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT is one of the most famous thought experiments in the history of science. Erwin Schrödinger (left) used it to try to argue against adopting one approach Quantum Mechanics. Most people seem unaware that he was trying to highlight a problem with what was, in 1935, a controversial theory, but which has become the orthodoxy: namely the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics . These days when we say Quantum Mechanics we usually mean the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (hereafter QM). Many people who know next to nothing about science, or about Schrödinger, have tried to co-opt Schrödinger's cat to show how there is a relationship between physics and Buddhism. Let me say at the beginning that I don't believe that there is any significant cross-over between physics and Buddhism, and that I hope to explain why in the rest of this post. Granted my degree is in chemistry and it was a long time ago; but I also studied physics, and I'm an ordained Buddhist, so I feel at least not-overly-unqualified to comment.

To begin with we need to be clear on scale. An atom is between 32 picometres and 225 picometres in diameter. A picometer is 1×10⁻¹² m, i.e. a trillionth of a metre, or 0.000000000001 m. By contrast a human hair is around 50 µm or 0.000005 m. So a single hair is about about 1.5 million helium atoms in diameter. Basically this scale is unimaginable, so let's put it another way: if the diameter an atom was the thickness of a single sheet of copier paper (0.08mm) then a human hair would be 120 metres in diameter. Amedeo Avogadro showed that 12g of carbon contains approximately 6 x 10²³ atoms of carbon. That is 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (600 sextillion) atoms. If each carbon atom was 1 mm³ then the 12g of carbon would fill the Western Mediterranean Ocean (from Gibraltar to Sicily), with plenty to spare. In fact 12g of carbon (in the form of powdered soot) is about 2 teaspoons. In QM we're dealing with the subatomic world, with the protons, neutrons and elections, and the weirder particles which make up atoms. A proton is about 1/50th of the diameter of the smallest atom; while an electron is thought to be in the region of 10⁻²²m, which is one 10-billionth the diameter of a proton. Don't be fooled by our ability to write these properties down in numbers: they are highly abstract, unimaginable, incomprehensible, and none of us can draw on experience to get a sense of them. If you are still confident that any of this is relevant to human existence then read on.

Those with an interest in this subject will know that QM conceives of subatomic particles as waves (which can behave like particles under some conditions) that are described not in terms of physical properties, but in mathematical formulas. QM is the first theory of science to not be based on observations of physical properties, but to emerge from abstract mathematical speculation. [ 1 ] Though of course QM makes testable predictions about the behaviour of matter on the picometer scale. This description of sub-atomic particles as waves has some interesting consequences. One is that the particle is not a point in space, but is smeared out over space. Another is that all we can know about the particles in atoms are the odds of the particle being in any one place in space at any given time. What's more, as Heisenberg showed, if we know precisely where a particle is, then we can't simultaneously know how fast it is going - this is called the Uncertainty Principle.

Schrödinger's thought experiment related to a curious prediction arising out of the mathematics of waves (subsequently experimentally confirmed). Under certain circumstances two wavy particles can become 'entangled' which means that their waves combine into a single system, though they retain their identities. (Don't worry if you don't quite understand how this works - Feynman was not being ironic when he said that no one understands QM.) Schrödinger's problem was that this meant that observing some of the properties of one of the particles, meant having certain knowledge about the other particle because the two must be in opposition. The main property we are concerned with is called 'spin' - which relates to the magnetic properties of charged particles.

The two entangled particles can be in one of two spin states, but cannot both occupy the same state. With regard to the spin state of any single particle we can only talk about the probability that they will be in a given state at any time until we observe it. However, observing the spin of one entangled particle, determines which state the other will be in with 100% certainty without observing it, no matter where it is in the universe. This appears to contradict the limit introduced by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1905) that nothing, not even information, can travel faster than the speed of light. But also, and even more weirdly, before an observation we can only think about spin states in terms of probabilities and the the maths tells us that the combined probabilities of the two particles being in any given state always equals one. The Copenhagen Interpretation says that this effectively means that the two entangled particles are both in both states simultaneously - the two states are superimposed as the jargon goes.

This is quite counter-intuitive, but it has been a boon for science-fiction because the spin states of the entangled particles are linked no matter how far apart they are - "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein facetiously referred to it - which if you aren't too fussy about details gives you an excellent medium for instantaneous communications across the vastness of space.

However, it begs the question: how can something be in two states at once until observed? It was in order to highlight these paradoxical aspects of QM that Schrödinger put his imaginary cat in the imaginary box. With it he placed a mechanism which would release cyanide gas, with a switch triggered by the decay of an atom of Uranium, the timing of which we cannot predict from theory. Close the lid of the box, prime the switch and think: is the cat alive at this moment, or is it dead? If the atom has not decayed the cat will be alive, and if it has decayed the cat will be dead. We can't know until we open the box and observe. Schrödinger invited us to think of the cat as a metaphor for the infinitesimal sub-atomic particle, whose wave was metaphorically entangled with the Uranium atom. If the cat truly was like a sub-atomic particle, then it was both alive and dead until the box was opened, and it was observed to be one or the other. He was trying to show that this is a ridiculous conclusion, and that therefore the Copenhagen Interpretation must be flawed. He lost that particular argument.

A lot of people jump from the picometre scale to the metre scale without any thought for the consequences of a trillion-fold change in scale - even though we know, for example, that our bath water doesn't really behave like an ocean! Or though we know that those pre-CGI movie special effects with models are totally unconvincing. The problem is that in a real cat there are several thousand sextillions of atoms, made up of many particles. Although each infinitesimal particle is a wave and subject to QM effects, these are averaged out over some tens or hundreds of thousands of sextillions of particles. The behaviour of any one particle, or even any million or billion particles, is not going to change the average properties of the cat. Unlike sub-atomic particles, cats simply do not wink in and out of existence; they are not smeared out over space (except perhaps when run over); and we can in fact know quite precisely (compared to the size of the cat) where a cat is and how fast it is moving at the same time. The Uncertainty Principle doesn't apply on the macro level. QM has almost no relevance to the macro world, to a world where objects are made up of septillions of atoms because of the averaging effect of so many particles - if weird stuff was happening we'd never know because a human hair is millions of atoms in diameter. And this is partly why Schrödinger was unable to undermine the Copenhagen Interpretation with this thought experiment, and why it has been co-opted by the targets of his critique, not to mention Buddhists! Actually sub-atomic particles are not alive and it is not ridiculous to argue that they can be in two superimposed states at once, even though it is ridiculous to argue it for a cat. In effect, Schrödinger's Cat proved nothing.

One of the unfinished tasks of modern physics is finding some way to marry QM with Relativity (E=mc² yadda yadda again we don't really understand this). This has proved elusive, though work is going on at both the empirical and the theoretical ends of the problem. So far no one has unequivocal evidence for, say, quantum gravity; and no one has been able to make the maths add up. It may in fact turn out that the two theories are not adequate to the task and that both will be subsumed into some larger construct (some people claim that String Theory will do it, if anyone can ever solve the equations; Stephen Hawking barracks for M-Theory if anyone can both figure out what equations are and how to solve them). Certainly dark matter and dark energy are causing a scramble to rework the Standard Model of Cosmology to account for the observations that gave rise to those terms. Often theories don't survive being scaled up by a dozen orders of magnitude, and this is the case for QM (so far).

It's pretty clear that QM, a mathematical abstraction, doesn't apply to our macro world. However it does have indirect consequences for us as QM issues have to be taken into account in designing new micro-processors which pack millions of transistors into square millimetres; and in nascent nano-technology. But in terms of our daily lives none of the observations of sub-atomic particles apply. None. The similarity of vocabulary is superficial and coincidental, just as the similarity of ethical jargon in various religions is largely superficial and coincidental! well, perhaps not entirely coincidental because like Schopenhauer, both Schrödinger and Niels Bohr were interested in so-called 'Eastern philosophy' and built some of it into the narrative.

Some weeks ago now, in the comments to my post on Rebirth and the Scientific Method Elisa and Krishna were asking: "why do Buddhists feel the need to justify their beliefs by appealing to science?" Part of my answer related to the way the scientific paradigm has dominated our lives for roughly 150 years. Science is incredibly successful in describing the physical world, and predicting new observations and properties of matter. Just look at the recent crop of Nobel Prizes to see the contribution that science makes. In a way it's obvious that we'd want to participate in that. It is a bit ironic that so few Buddhists are educated in the sciences, and tend to approach science with a mixture of abhorrence for perceived materialism, and credulous wonder at its success and authoritativeness.

I don't see much advantage in invoking the talisman of science in defence of religion, especially when on the whole we religieux are so ignorant of science (one of my teachers recently mentioned the way "larger bodies attract smaller ones" in a public talk. He's not an idiot, nor spiritually shallow, but he is clearly, painfully ignorant of science!). It so happens that Buddhists avoid some of the pitfalls of the modern world view (we don't have creation stories for instance), but though monotheism more obviously runs foul of science, I don't think we can sustain our traditional eschatologies, nor claims of ESP powers, nor to know the nature of 'reality', if we are working in a scientific paradigm. It's a minefield.

I don't think Buddhism on its own terms needs any scientific apologetic. Buddhism is originally the product of Iron Age India, and has adapted to many different cultural environments and world-views because, in my opinion, it is not so concerned with the realm of physics, it is concerned with the realm of the mind. Physics provides us with a far superior description of the physical world; but equally in the domain of the mind, and especially the problem of suffering, that Buddhism is far superior descriptively and practically (in terms of practices for working on the mind). This superiority in its own field is not a consequence of levels of technology or an understanding of physics. It's to do with observing our own minds. We don't need a Large Hadron Collider for this. We just need to sit quietly and observe our minds. It is a kind of empiricism, but we don't need to get caught up in making a 'science' out of it.

~~ oOo ~~

Notes

1. This feature of QM not deriving from observations of physical properties was recently the subject of an article in the New Scientist: Webb, Richard. 'Reality Gap' 21 August 2010, p.32-6. NS apparently subscribes to another uncertainty principle as the article title is quite changeable:
   • on the cover - The Ultimate Quantum Paradox
   • contents page - The Ultimate Paradox
   • printed article - Reality Gap
   • online article - Is quantum theory weird enough for the real world? [login required]
   • ScienceDirect article database - Quantum Mechanics: The Reality Gap [login required].
   (return to article)

(Note: Though I gather that Schrödinger loved women and a good party, I confess I'm not really sure whether he owned a cat. Some people claim that Schrödinger was a cat lover, and some that he was a cat hater, but I thought my title was catchy and ran with it. I hope my readers will allow me some poetic licence.)

image: Erwin Schrödinger (internet endemic, i.e. copied so many times that there is no longer a discernible source).

Feynman quotes from Wikiquote.

If you want to learn about Quantum Theory from one of the men who helped to develop it, then I can recommend these three lectures by Hans Bethe: Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple. As the site says, the Prof is 93 years old and lecturing to the other residents at his retirement home.


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