This article deals with quotatives–overt marks that indicate quotations–consisting in iti/ti or containing vuttaṃ which are used in Pāli commentarial literature to signal the occurrence of a quotation. We distinguish two types, namely, “general quotatives” and “individual quotatives”. The former are universally valid. They are widely acknowledged and used in various text corpora over several centuries. The latter are defined by an author solely for usage in his commentary. In the first part of our contribution we describe the implications (...) connected with the usage of quotatives, and depict the specific problems which may arise when a text including “individual quotatives” is tacitly borrowed. In the second part we present some of the most common “general quotatives” formed with the words iti/ti and vuttaṃ. We aim at pointing out in which text layers a quotative is applied, for which text layers it is used, when it was in and when out of fashion. (shrink)

Bernhard and Young (Journal of Academic Ethics, 7, 175-191, 2009) allege that a myth of confidentiality plagues research in North America because of the absence of statute-based legal protections and the requirements of some REBs to limit confidentiality to the extent permitted by law. In this commentary we describe statute-based protections for research confidentiality available in the United States, clarify the legal situation regarding research confidentiality in Canada, and explain that REBs that require confidentiality to be limited by law are (...) imposing a doctrine that is not required by the TCPS and may violate researchers’ academic freedom. The paper laments how excessive REB risk aversion and inaction by the granting agency Presidents has created a situation where some REBs are encouraging researchers to download research risks to research participants and forcing researchers to choose between exposing themselves to the prospect of going to jail to protect confidentiality, watering down their research objectives, or conducting vanilla research rather than engaging in controversial and/or sensitive areas of study. The paper urges the granting agency Presidents to seek legislative change to protect research participants who provide information that could cause them harm if their identity were to be revealed. (shrink)

The Theragatha of the Khuddakanikaya has only ten stanzas uttered by the Elder Kaludayi. However, the Madhuratthavilasini, the commentary to the Buddhavamsa preserves 64 stanzas ascribed to the Elder while the Visuddhajanavilasini, the commentary to the Apad?na quotes a different series consisting of 48 stanzas ascribed to him. It is probable that these two series contain ancient verses which could not be accommodated within the Pali canon and then continued to be preserved in the commentaries as extra-canonical texts. Yet (...) some of the verses in these two series appear to be later compositions. The present article offers a literal translation of the Bv-a and the Ap-a verses, which have so far received no scholarly attention. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a philosophical analysis of Pāli texts that treat of a special kind of mental event called bhavaṅga citta. This mental event is a primal sentient consciousness, a passive form of basal awareness that individuates sentient beings as the type of being that they are. My aims with this analysis are twofold, one genealogical and reconstructive, the other systematic. On the genealogical and reconstructive side, I argue for a distinction between two kinds of continuity that (...) are at work in explaining the temporal structure of experience in Pāli Buddhist philosophy. Call these two forms of continuity ‘diachronic’ and ‘affective-motivational’ continuity, respectively. In my analysis of these two forms of continuity, I will focus on the coherence of bhavaṅga citta in its Abhidhammic context. My contention is that the commentarial account of bhavaṅga citta has the resources to explain diachronic continuity but struggles to give a fully workable account of affective-motivational continuity. I argue that the novel view of mental continuity offered by the early twentieth century Burmese monastic exegete Ledi Sayadaw offers another intriguing account of mental continuity, one that can help to explain affective-motivational continuity. Systematically speaking, in spelling out the dynamics of this distinction between types of mental continuity in connection with bhavaṅga, I offer a cross-cultural philosophical analysis of the deep structure of the mind and how affective processes below the threshold of ordinary habits of attention have a profound conditioning effect on our conscious relationship with the world. (shrink)

The Digha Nikaya and its Commentaries. Dhammagiri-Pali-Ganthamala, Volumes 1-11. Vipassana Research Institute, Igatpuri 1993-95.

The Great Discourse on Causation. The Mahanidana Sutta and its Commentaries. Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1984. xii + 151 pp. $6.00.

The Sārasaṅgaha is a Pāli text of XIIth–XIIIth century by the Sinhalese monk Siddhattha Thera. Its themes include the aspiration to become a Buddha, shrines, meditation, theories on rain, wind, gender and more. The main body consists of citations from the Nikāyas, the Jātakas, the Visuddhimagga and above all, from commentarial literature. By analysing the way the Sārasaṅgaha refers to and establishes a dialogue with the quoted works, this paper promotes a new assessment of the cultural and textual tendencies (...) that influenced the development of Buddhist literature especially in the Middle Ages. In particular, the analysis of this text and the quotations of which it is composed reveals the importance of commentarial literature, a literary genre that only recently has attracted the attention of Pāli scholars. (shrink)

The Discourse on the All-embracing Net of Views: the Brahmajala Sutta and its Commentaries translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1978. xiii-359pp. Rs. 75, £5.00.

The Discourse on The Root of Existence. The Mulapariyaya Sutta and its Commentaries translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1980. xiii + 90pp. £2.50 or US$5.00.

The Commentary on the Verses of the Theris. William Pruitt. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1998. xiv, 445 pp. £22.00. ISBN 0 86013 363 X.

Maria Heim’s Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words is a rare example of sustained scholarly engagement with commentarial literature. The book introduces the reader to the literary world of the Theravāda Buddhist exegete Buddhaghosa, with the stated goal of learning to read as he did. Heim shows with a series of close readings how Buddhaghosa read scripture with a high degree of attention to context, and how he understood both the Buddhist canon and the Buddha’s knowledge to (...) be infinitely expansive. Heim’s thorough and accessible treatment makes her presentation an approachable case study of commentarial literature. (shrink)

A strong strand of the scholarship of Lance Cousins focussed on the jh?nas and related matters, and he was also a practitioner and teacher of samatha meditation, which aims at the jh?nas. In this dual tradition, this paper explores subtle questions about the nature of each jh?na as dealt with in the Pali Nik?yas, Abhidhamma and commentaries. Its aim is to help illuminate what it is like to be in any of these jh?nas: what is going on in them, (...) and what has been transcended? What do the similes for each jh?na convey about the overall situation in them? What kind` of thought and feelings are understood to occur in them? To what extent does breathing stop in deep jh?na? To what extent is hearing transcended in them? What happens in moving between them? How are they related to developing insight? (shrink)

The technique of ‘examining meditative topics’ is one of the emblematic practices of the ‘Zen’ traditions of East Asia. An emblematic feature of this technique is the generation of a sense of inquiry, or more literally a ‘feeling’ or ‘sensation of doubt’. This inquiry creates an intense introspective focus that, in some strands of the practice, may be accompanied by palpable physical sensations; these sensations seem to be analogous to the experience of ‘excitation’ or ‘rapture’ described in contemporary samatha/śamatha and (...) vipassanā/vipaśyanā practice. I explore the treatment of prīti in Abhidharma theory and suggest that, where prīti is not classified as a discrete dharma, it might best be classified as a type of otherworldly vedanā that is ‘free from carnality’. I conclude with a discussion of an explicit questioning dimension in commentarial discussions of satipaṭṭhāna practice in the Pāli tradition, where inquiring ‘Who goes? Whose is this going?’ helps to transform the act of walking into an act of mindfulness. This questioning dimension suggests possible parallels with the Zen notion of ‘doubt’. (shrink)

The value of Jonardon Ganeri's work to cross-cultural philosophy is beyond comparison. He has been and continues to be a singular and unrepeatable force of philosophical creativity. His new monograph Attention, Not Self is another deep contribution. AnS is of special importance because it engages so seriously with the work of Buddhaghosa, a much-neglected fifth-century Buddhist philosopher whose commentarial works form the intellectual backbone of the Pāli tipiṭaka of Theravāda Buddhism.1I cannot hope to treat all the nuance and depth (...) of Ganeri's newest offering here. The book is, quite frankly, dizzying in the density and extensiveness of its argument, even for an expert. Nevertheless, I shall try to comment... (shrink)

The suicide accounts of three bhikkhus in sutta literature probably inspired the formulation of a particular type of person who attains Arahantship at death, later designated as an ‘equal-headed’ person in the Abhidhamma. The Therav?da tends to depict those bhikkhus as non-Arahants before suicide. The Pali commentary explains that they did not attain Arahantship until their deaths and refers to two of them as each being an ‘equal-header’. By contrast, the Sarv?stiv?da s?tras and Abhidharma portray them as Arahants during their (...) lifetimes. The Sarv?stiv?dins deny the concept of samas?sin proposed by the Vibh?jyav?dins, which include the Therav?da and Dharmaguptaka schools. The Pali commentaries provide various explanations and classifications of samas?sin, which have one idea in common: the term signifies the concurrence of two events, and it denotes at least a person who only becomes an Arahant at death, and sometimes someone who becomes an Arahant at the same time as a certain kind of event occurs. The Pa?isambhid?magga, a quasi-Abhidhamma text, has a chapter that expounds ‘equal-head’ in an oblique way by enumerating various kinds of sama and of s?sa separately. The Pa?isambhid?magga commentary tries to make sense of the term samas?sa by associating this textual exposition of sama and s?sa with the more commonly found term samas?sin. (shrink)

Abstract The Suttas indicate physical conditions for success in meditation, and also acceptance of a not?Self life?principle (primarily viññana) which is (usually) dependent on the mortal physical body. In the Abhidhamma and commentaries, the physical acts on the mental through the senses and through the ?basis? for mind?organ and mind?consciousness, which came to be seen as the ?heart?basis?. Mind acts on the body through two ?intimations?: fleeting modulations in the primary physical elements. Various forms of r?pa are also said (...) to originate dependent on citta and other types of r?pa. Meditation makes possible the development of a ?mind?made body? and control over physical elements through psychic powers. The formless rebirths and the state of cessation are anomalous states of mind?without?body, or body?without?mind, with the latter presenting the problem of how mental phenomena can arise after being completely absent. Does this twin?category process pluralism avoid the problems of substance?dualism? (shrink)

The publication presents the initial passages of the famious Pali Brahmajālasuttanta with the corresponding parts of its traditional commentary Sumaṅgalavilāsinī as a sample of the ancient hypertext. It is meant as a valuable source to such fundamental philological and hermeneutical questions as what is commented ans what is disregarded by the commentator; how, why and whatfore is in commented.

The word _meṇḍaka_, a derivative of _meṇḍa_ (“ram”), is generally translated as “made of the ram” or “about the ram” or “horned.” However, in the Pāli _Milindapañha_ (_Questions of Milinda_), the word _meṇḍakapañha_, literally, a question about the ram, is also rendered as a logical conclusion that refutes an imaginary dilemma. Hence, in this treatise, the word _meṇḍaka_ is a special logical term which means an imaginary dilemma that can be logically refuted. This raises the question as to why (...) the word _meṇḍaka_ has come to be associated with this logical technique. To answer this question, this paper examines various aspects of the word and its possible connections to a dilemma and its refutation. The discussion ranges from the meaning of this word in a tale in the _Jātaka_ (Birth Stories), within the contextual usage in a _meṇḍaka_ question, to a relatively recent commentarial text (_aṭṭhakathā_) which gives a different perspective on the etymology of the word. The _Milindapañha_ is explicit in defining a _meṇḍaka_ question as knotty, hard to penetrate, and difficult to resolve, some of which an opponent puts forth to undermine certain aspects of the Buddhist system. However, the way certain _meṇḍaka_ questions are framed, though not directly stated, seem to utilize the principles of logic in a dilemmatic form of argument. With that, a _meṇḍaka_ question, at least in the _Milindapañha_, could also mean “a dilemmatic expression put forth by a challenger to undermine an opponent, but which can be logically refuted.”. (shrink)

The Udana and The Udana Commentary. Peter Masefield. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1994, 1994, 1995. ix, 203; xvi, 566; vi, 605 pp. £17.95; £24.95; £24.95.

This landmark volume in the Teachings of the Buddha series translates the Suttanipata, a text that matches the Dhammapada in its concise power and its centrality to the Buddhist tradition. Celebrated translator Bhikkhu Bodhi illuminates this text and its classical commentaries with elegant renderings and authoritative annotations. The Suttanipata, or “Group of Discourses” is a collection of discourses ascribed to the Buddha that includes some of the most popular suttas of the Pali Canon, among them the Discourse on Loving-Kindness (...) Sutta. The suttas are primarily in verse, though several are in mixed prose and verse. The Suttanipata contains discourses that extol the figure of the muni, the illumined sage, who wanders homeless completely detached from the world. Other suttas, such as the Discourse on Downfall and the Discourse on Blessings, establish the foundations of Buddhist lay ethics. The last two chapters—the Atthakavagga (Chapter of Octads) and the Parayanavagga (The Way to the Beyond)—are considered to be among the most ancient parts of the Pali Canon. The Atthakavagga advocates a critical attitude toward views and doctrines. The Parayanavagga is a beautiful poem in which sixteen spiritual seekers travel across India to meet the Buddha and ask him profound questions pertaining to the highest goal. The commentary, the Paramatthajotika, relates the background story to each sutta and explains each verse in detail. The volume includes numerous excerpts from the Niddesa, an ancient commentary already included in the Pali Canon, which offers detailed expositions of each verse in the Atthakavagga, the Parayanavagga, and the Rhinoceros Horn Sutta. Translator Bhikkhu Bodhi provides an insightful, in-depth introduction, a guide to the individual suttas, extensive notes, a list of parallels to the discourses of the Suttanipata, and a list of the numerical sets mentioned in the commentaries. (shrink)

This landmark volume in the Teachings of the Buddha series translates the Suttanipata, a text that matches the Dhammapada in its concise power and its centrality to the Buddhist tradition. Celebrated translator Bhikkhu Bodhi illuminates this text and its classical commentaries with elegant renderings and authoritative annotations. The Suttanipata, or “Group of Discourses” is a collection of discourses ascribed to the Buddha that includes some of the most popular suttas of the Pali Canon, among them the Discourse on Loving-Kindness (...) Sutta. The suttas are primarily in verse, though several are in mixed prose and verse. The Suttanipata contains discourses that extol the figure of the muni, the illumined sage, who wanders homeless completely detached from the world. Other suttas, such as the Discourse on Downfall and the Discourse on Blessings, establish the foundations of Buddhist lay ethics. The last two chapters—the Atthakavagga (Chapter of Octads) and the Parayanavagga (The Way to the Beyond)—are considered to be among the most ancient parts of the Pali Canon. The Atthakavagga advocates a critical attitude toward views and doctrines. The Parayanavagga is a beautiful poem in which sixteen spiritual seekers travel across India to meet the Buddha and ask him profound questions pertaining to the highest goal. The commentary, the Paramatthajotika, relates the background story to each sutta and explains each verse in detail. The volume includes numerous excerpts from the Niddesa, an ancient commentary already included in the Pali Canon, which offers detailed expositions of each verse in the Atthakavagga, the Parayanavagga, and the Rhinoceros Horn Sutta. Translator Bhikkhu Bodhi provides an insightful, in-depth introduction, a guide to the individual suttas, extensive notes, a list of parallels to the discourses of the Suttanipata, and a list of the numerical sets mentioned in the commentaries. (shrink)

Elucidation of the Intrinsic Meaning so named the Commentary on the Vimana Stories. Translated by Peter Masefield assisted by N. A. Jayawickrama. Pali Text Society. Oxford 1989. lxi. 561 pp. £27.25.

The Pāli expression khaggavisāṇakappo may either mean ‘like the rhinoceros’ or ‘like the horn of the rhinoceros’. It occurs in the refrain eko care khaggavisāṇakappo at the end of each stanza of the Khaggavisāṇasutta and its parallels, and the refrain has been translated by some as ‘one should wander alone like the rhinoceros’ but by some, including K.R. Norman, as ‘one should wander alone like the horn of the rhinoceros’. K.R. Norman has however set out his reasons for regarding (...) ‘like the rhinoceros horn’ as the correct translation, and for ‘like the rhinoceros’ as wrong. The present article critically discusses Norman’s reasons, concluding that the expression khaggavisāṇa may be regarded as a deliberately ambiguous compound meaning both the rhinoceros and its horn, or perhaps as a single expression meaning ‘rhinoceros’. The zoological facts are considered, as well as the difficult etymology of khaggavisāṇa, its contextual meaning, its meaning in Jain parallels, and its discussion in Pāli commentaries. The article concludes that ‘like the rhinoceros’ is in fact a correct translation. (shrink)

Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma by Anuruddha, and Exposition of the Topics of Abhi-dhamma by Sumangala, being a commentary to Anuruddha’s Summary of the Topics of Abhidhamma. Translated by R.P. Wijeratne and Rupert Gethin. Pali Text Society, Oxford 2002. xxi, 415 pp. £18.00. ISBN: 0 86013 412 1.

Scholars have pointed out that the arguments for not-self recurring in the Buddhist texts are meant to refute the “self” in the Upani?ads. The Buddha’s denial of the self, however, was not only pointed at Brahmanism, but also confronted various?rama?ic trends of thought against Brahmanism. This paper investigates the extant three versions of a Buddhist text which records a debate between the Buddha and Saccaka, an adherent of a certain?rama?ic sect, over the relationship of the self and the five aggregates. (...) There exist divergences among the three versions in regard to the account of this debate. The account in sutta 35 of the Majjhima Nik?ya is generally consistent with that in s?tra 110 of the Sa?yukta?gama in Chinese translation, whereas s?tra 10 of Chapter 37 of the Ekottarika?gama in Chinese translation tells a very different story. Judging from Saccaka’s title, Niga??haputta, and his background as given in the Pali commentary, he was an adherent of Jainism. This paper demonstrates that Saccaka’s view, which was refuted by the Buddha, as stated in the two similar versions has nothing to do with Jainism, but rather it is an “invention” created by distorting Brahmanical thought. This “invention” has led the Pali commentaries and contemporary scholars to interpret the ‘self’ denied by the Buddha as what comes under one’s mastery or control, and to understand the statement “Each of the five aggregates is not self” in the Buddhist texts as denying the idea that each of the five aggregates can be seen as what comes under control. This, however, misses the point. The mainstream thought in India at that time conceived the ‘self’ or the essence of the individual or of the universe as a ‘controller’, and it is this concept that the Buddha exerted all his energy to overturn. Therefore, the account in those two versions of the text apparently has some mistake. As to the Ekottarika?gama version of the text, Saccaka’s view as stated therein is very different from what is found in the above two versions. An examination of this version shows that the views rebutted by the Buddha are very similar to those of the?j?vikas. Since the Buddhist texts frequently confuse the?j?vikas with the Jains, it is very likely that Saccaka was actually an adherent of the?j?vika faith and that this discourse is meant to criticize the?j?vika doctrines. Since the Ekottarika?gama version seems to make better sense, this version may be fairly close to the original account, while the other two versions have considerably deviated from the original. By comparing these three versions of the text, I also attempt to explore some important issues regarding the sectarian development of Buddhism, and to shed some light on the unique values of the Chinese Ekottarika?gama, which is, in terms of sectarian affiliation, significantly distant from the Pali Majjhima Nik?ya and the Chinese Sa?yukta?gama that belong to two closely related schools. (shrink)

According to the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, mindfulness of the body involves seeing the body in a threefold way: ajjhattaṃ, bahiddhā, and ajjhattabahiddhā. This article attempts to show how an investigation of bodily perception, following the approach adopted by the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, can serve as the basis for a philosophically grounded understanding of the Pāli words ajjhattaṃ and bahiddhā. The interpretation that emerges is the distinction between “right here” and “out there”: two mutually dependent, internally related domains that are experienced (...) as what Merleau-Ponty called the “chiasm” or the “intertwining.” This is different from the standard interpretations found in the Abhidhamma, the Pāli commentaries, the Visuddhimagga, and the instructions of most contemporary meditation teachers. It is hoped that the interpretation offered here can give some exposure to a movement within Theravāda Buddhism, initiated by Ñāṇavīra Thera but slowly gaining traction, characterized by a phenomenological reading of the Pāli sutta s. (shrink)

Respected modern scholars regard the pre-Buddhist philosopher Sañjaya Belaṭṭhiputta—a significant figure in the Buddhist canon—as the originator of the important classical argument- forms known as the catuṣkoṭi and catuṣkoṭi vinirmukta. We argue that the early Buddhist texts do not in fact support this view of the origin of these argument-forms; the question of their origin is open. While it is certainly true that the Pāli Sāmaññaphala Sutta and some of its parallels portray Sañjaya as deploying the catuṣkoṭi, there is (...) nothing in these passages to suggest that he was its originator. The situation concerning the catuṣkoṭi vinirmukta is perhaps even more surprising: There is nothing in the early Pāli texts and their parallels—nor in Buddhagosa’s famous Pāli commentary on the early texts—to show that Sañjaya even deployed the catuṣkoṭi vinirmukta let alone originated it. Further, our investigations also call into question the standard portrayal of Sañjaya as an obfuscator and prevaricator. It appears he may have been a more interesting and able philosopher than the Sāmaññaphala Sutta—and modern accounts based on it—maintain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 189-193 [Access article in PDF] Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture. By Anne M. Blackburn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. x + 241 pp. Buddhist Learning is an important study of the emergence of the Siyam Nikaya (monastic order) in eighteenth-century Kandy, Sri Lanka's last Buddhist kingdom (which fell to the British only in 1815). Blackburn focuses on educational institutions (...) in her account, but frames it also to address larger issues in the study of Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts and history.An introductory chapter sets forth Blackburn's three central arguments (4): colonial and postcolonial scholarly constructions of Sri Lankan Buddhist "tradition" obscure the eighteenth-century phenomena that she reconstructs; the idea of "textual communities," developed in dialogue with contemporary scholarship on medieval European Christianity, provides a useful tool for analyzing those phenomena; [End Page 189] thus analyzed, the early Siyam Nikaya turns out to represent an innovative "reformulation" of Sri Lankan Buddhism, made possible by the establishment of the order itself, its systematization of monastic education, and the development of a bilingual commentarial genre for use within that system.Chapter 2 provides nonspecialists "at least a glimpse of the larger social context in which the emerging Siyam Nikaya participated" (23), with brief sketches of Sri Lankan Buddhist history, the structure and politics of the Kandyan court, the organization of monasticism prior to the rise of the Siyam Nikaya, and the presence of non-Buddhist religious leaders in Kandyan society. Chapter 3 begins with a discussion of Sri Lankan monastic education prior to 1730, then analyzes three stages in the emergence of distinctive Siyam Nikaya educational institutions (the early career of founder Valivita Saranamkara [1698-1778]; the late 1730s creation of a prototypical educational institution at Niyamakanda; and the 1753 importation of higher ordination [ upasampada ] from Thailand/formal establishment of the Siyam Nikaya, respectively), the history of royal patronage of these institutions, their new curriculum, its implementation and administration, its impact on monastic identity and lay-monastic relations, and the relationship of monastic erudition to prestige and patronage.Chapter 4 surveys Siyam Nikaya histories to argue that the order's rise was attended by "an innovative discourse on monasticism" that bolstered its authority by depicting its education-based interpretation of monastic virtue as "natural and desirable Buddhist practice" (105). Though these histories employed the rhetorical trope of decline and revival, their emphasis on Buddhist learning "signals a moment of profound change in Lankan Buddhism" (76-77), because they provided a charter for the new Nikaya while creating a perception that Siyam Nikaya monks practiced the best form of Buddhist monasticism. When imbibed by members of the royal court, this assured these monks steady patronage and prestige over their rivals, called ganinnanses, whom they directly and indirectly attacked. Chapter 5 zeroes in on Saranamkara and his Sararthadipani, a bilingual (Sinhala and Pali) commentary on the "four recitation sections" (catubhanavara) of protective (paritta) texts in Pali. This monumental work and the genre of bilingual commentaries (called sutra sannayas ) that it inspired, Blackburn maintains, were central to Saranamkara's claim to authority and created a distinctive monastic identity for Siyam Nikaya monks. Through close analysis of selected passages from Sararthadipani, Blackburn reveals the inner workings of bilingual commentary, particularly insofar as it allowed Saranamkara and his disciples to demonstrate their proper command of the classic Pali texts.In chapter 6 Blackburn argues that the sutra sannayas produced "a new Buddhist textual community" united in its reading and/or hearing of them. Exploring the ways in which Sararthadipani and the other sutra sannayas "constrained" readers to accept Saranamkara's vision of proper monasticism (such as direct instructions to readers and rhetorical structures), but recognizing that they also left open (in their use of simile, metaphor, and illustrative stories) the possibility of "less constrained" and "resistant" readings, Blackburn suggests that the genre extended the Siyam Nikaya's program beyond the small circle of Saranamkara's disciples to transform Sri Lankan monasticism [End Page 190] more generally. Moreover, she argues that given... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to compare the contents of the Lotus Sūtra and the style of presentation of its message with the thrust of the Buddha's teachings as they are preserved in the early Buddhist sources, particularly the Sutta Piaka of the Pāli Canon, and also in the Pāli commentarial literature. In the process it attempts to identify in the early sources the precedents of some of the bold statements in the Lotus Sūtra which appear as (...) complete innovations, but may be elaborations of elements contained in Pāli sources in germinal form. Despite the difference in style, language and mythological imagery, the conclusion is that both the Sutta Piaka and the Lotus Sūtra express in their respective manners the true spirit of the Buddhist message. Attention is drawn also to the striking parallels between the Buddhist picture of the multiple universe and modern cosmological theories. (shrink)

Despite more than two hundred years of modern academic study of the Pali literature, Pali commentaries still remain understudied. We know very little about the reading practices of the traditional Pali commentators and philosophers themselves. Maria Heim is one of the very few scholars invested in filling this major lacuna in Buddhist studies. Heim’s 2014 publication, The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency, already illuminated the philosophical acumen of Buddhaghosa, the foremost Pali commentator of the (...) fifth century CE, whose name is intertwined with Theravada Buddhism itself. In her recent publication, the Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words, Heim continues... (shrink)

This paper focuses on the scholastic technique of the Theravāda scholar-monk Chapaṭa Saddhammajotipāla. Chapaṭa is the author of several scholastic treatises in Pāli, the most voluminous of which is the Suttaniddesa, a commentary on the Pāli grammar of Kaccāyana. I offer a general introduction to the Pāli grammatical tradition and especially to the Pāli grammatical tradition of Burma, together with an introduction to the life and works of Chapaṭa. I also offer the first annotated translation of (...) a passage from the Suttaniddesa and in this way I show how the scholastic technique of Chapaṭa is based on a precise use of quotations, mainly from other Pāli or Sanskrit grammatical texts, but also from Buddhist literature. I finally give a preliminary assessment of typology and purpose of every different type of quotation. Although this paper consists mainly of preliminary work, it is the first essay entirely devoted to the Suttaniddesa, which is one of the most important grammatical works in the Theravāda tradition. (shrink)

This article examines the semantic changes of the term ‘mahā-sammata’ in the later Pāli texts and inscriptions, focusing on the legitimation of the Mahāvihāra’s authority in the isle of Laṅkā. (In this paper, ‘later’ does not have any chronological meaning. It only means the texts, which are philosophically based on the Tipiṭaka.) In the Buddhist Canon, the combination of ‘mahā’ with ‘sammata’ tells us that one was chosen by the people based on their needs. In this manner, it was (...) sometimes translated to the plural form as ‘land-guardians’ in the Chinese translations. The meaning of it, however, was changed to the legendary name of the first king in the later texts from various Buddhist schools. According to them, the term ‘mahā-sammata’ is regarded as a king named Mahāsammata who ruled people in the beginning of this present era. Furthermore, the Buddha is described as a descendant of the king Mahāsammata in the later texts. Based upon the regal and deific status conferred upon Mahāsammata, the later Pāli texts, namely Commentaries (Pāli Aṭṭhakathā) and Chronicles (Vaṃsa), and the Sri Lankan inscriptions, established the legendary lineage for the political rulers who patronised the Mahāvihāra fraternity. The rulers, as the ideal religious leaders of Dhammadīpa, were inserted into the lineage of Mahāsammata in the texts and inscriptions, elevating the rulers, who were devotees for the Mahāvihāra fraternity, to the status of the Buddha. It holds that the righteous rulers, whom Mahāvihāra approved as a member of the lineage, are the same as the Buddha (or Bodhisatta). The advent of Mahāsammata in the Theravāda tradition is sequentially related to the authority of the Mahāvihāra fraternity. (shrink)

The Vimokkhakathā, a section of the Paṭisambhidāmagga, expounds the longest list of vimokkhas found in Pali; it also finely elaborates on the notion of vimokkha through a crucial shift in Theravāda exegesis. In order to explore the meaning and nuances of vimokkha in the Paṭisambhidāmagga, this article focuses on its classifications and definitions, discussing their relation to the standard lists found in the Nikāyas. This examination highlights a multifaceted soteriology that supplies meditative practice with a consistent wholesome attitude; I will (...) also demonstrate how various microstructure-levels affect the macrostructure of the Paṭisambhidāmagga, which in turn draws upon the wider structure of the Tipiṭaka. In addition, the commentary to the enunciation of the releases, translated in Appendix, clarifies the structure of the vimokkhas, and their relationship with the whole Paṭisambhidāmagga. (shrink)

The Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā, attributed to Ānanda, is a sub-commentary of one of the seven books of the Pāli Abhidhamma-piṭaka, the Vibhaṅga, and the direct commentary of its commentary, Buddhaghosa’s Sammohavinodanī. In the section on the _satipaṭṭhāna_ method, Ānanda proposes exegetical strategies to solve some seeming contradiction between Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of the Vibhaṅga and the Sutta’s framework that the Satipaṭṭhānavibhaṅga refers to. An examination of exemplary passages from the Satipaṭṭhānavibhaṅga of the Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā will shed light upon the originality of (...) Ānanda’s thought and its influence on Dhammapāla’s commentaries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Word and Silence in Buddhist and Christian TraditionsDonald MitchellThe following official statement was written by Buddhist and Christian participants at the end of a very successful encounter at the Asirvanam Benedictine Monastery near Bangalore, India, from July 8 to13, 1998. The conference was organized by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID) and was attended by its president, Cardinal Francis Arinze, along with the PCID secretary, Archbishop Michael (...) Fitzgerald, and Fr. Machado, the PCID official for Asia. The conference proceedings will be published in the PCID journal, Pro Dialogo.Buddhist participants included Ven. Dr. Yifa from Fokuangshan in Taiwan, Ven. Bhaddarita Panna Dipa from the World Buddhist Meditation Center in Myanmar, Ven. Geshe D. Namgyal from the Drepung Loseling Monastery representing His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Asanga Tilakratne of the Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka, Dr. Michio Shinozaki, dean of the Rissho Kosei-Kai Seminary in Japan, and Prof. Yasuaki Nara of Komazawa University in Japan.Christian participants included Fr. Franco Sottocomola of the Seimeizen Center for Interreligious Dialogue in Japan, Fr. Valence Mendis of the National Seminary in Sri Lanka, Fr. Augustine Okumuru, OCD, of Japan, Prof. Donald W. Mitchell of Purdue University, Sr. Iona Misquitta, OSB, and Sr. Teresita D’Silva, OSB, both of the Shanti Nilayam Abbey in Bangalore, and Prof. Michael Fuss of the Gregorian University in Rome.Concluding Statement1. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue organized its second international colloquium at the Asirvanam Benedictine Monastery in Bangalore, India, from July 8 to 13, 1998. A small number of Buddhists and Christians from India, Tibet/India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States were invited for a dialogue on the theme of “Word and Silence in Buddhist and Christian Traditions.” This event encounter was in response to a desire expressed at the Pontifical Council’s First Colloquium that was held from July 31 to August 4, 1995, at the Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist Monastery in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. At the end of that first dialogue, the participants expressed the desire to [End Page 187] meet again in a Christian monastery in order to contribute to the deepening of the modern encounter between Buddhism and Christianity.2. The agenda of the meeting included four major topics: Buddhist Enlightenment and Christian Revelation, Sacred Texts in the Buddhist and Christian Traditions, Meditation and Contemplation in Buddhism and Christianity, and Anatta/ Sunyata and Kenosis. The papers were presented on these four topics in a way that fostered the dialogue process itself. In this process, all participants shared and explored their views of the place of word and silence in their respective traditions leading to a greater sense of mutual understanding and appreciation. This meeting proceeded by each side expressing what its own traditions believe, teach, and celebrate. The following points indicate some of the areas that were explored in the dialogue.3. The authority of the early sacred Buddhist texts was decided during the six great Buddhist Councils called for at different periods of time by the Buddha’s disciples after passing into Parinirvana. Theravada Buddhism accepts only the teachings of the Buddha that were declared authoritative during these councils. This early canon includes the discourses of the Buddha (Sutta), the rules for the monastic order (Vinaya), and the higher philosophical teachings (Abhidhamma). While Mahayana Buddhism accepts this early canon, it also accepts and emphasizes other sacred texts, called Sutras, which they believe were also taught by the Buddha. Within Mahayana there arose another tradition called Vajrayana that accepts the canons of both Theravada and Mahayana and adds a new literature called the Tantras, which present Buddhist esoteric teachings. Common to these traditions are the precepts for living the teachings of the Buddha and the authoritative commentaries of the particular traditions. These sacred texts describe the path that leads to the liberation from suffering and the nature and qualities of that supreme condition.In the Catholic tradition of Christianity, it is the teaching authority of the Church that has faithfully received the revealed and inspired texts and has determined their canonicity. The canon of Sacred Scripture consists of two sections: the Old Testament, written in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 2007 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesSan Diego, California, November 16–17, 2007Peter A. HuffThe Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies sponsored two sessions in conjunction with the 2007 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Each session highlighted themes related to the work of a major figure in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. The first session, addressing the topic “Homosexuality, the Church, and the Sangha,” was organized in honor of (...) Roger Corless (1938–2007), longtime member of the society, dual practitioner of Roman Catholicism and Vajrayana Buddhism, and a well-known voice for “queer sangha.” The second session, a panel discussion titled “The Thought and Legacy of Masao Abe,” focused on the career achievements of Abe (1915–2006), widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and influential scholars in modern Zen studies, interreligious dialogue, and comparative philosophy.The first session, moderated by Harry Wells (Humboldt State University), featured three papers on issues of gender, sexual ethics, and religious identity. Robert Fastiggi, professor of systematic theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit), presented the paper “The Catholic Church and Homosexuality.” Arguing that the Catholic tradition avoids an “either/or” approach to homosexuality, he outlined the church’s official distinction between morally neutral homoerotic identity and what Vatican documents call “intrinsically disordered” homosexual acts. He also noted that Catholic researchers differ significantly on the question of the genetic origins of same-sex attraction. The key to Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality, he explained, is a “theology of the body” that envisions male-female complementarity as the divinely ordained pattern of creation. Fastiggi suggested that further discussion of related ideas such as celibacy, chastity, desire, and concupiscence would enhance future Buddhist-Christian dialogue on homosexuality.Ilene Stanford, a ThD candidate in religion, gender, and culture at Harvard University, presented the next paper, “In or Out? Marriage as a Social Practice.” Describing marriage in the United States as a “site of contestation,” she explored the conflicting [End Page 137] models of sexual union that currently inform public debates in political and ecclesiastical contexts. Using William Johnson’s A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics (2006) as a point of departure, she argued that many contemporary examinations of sexual relationships, even some of the most inclusive, fail to reckon with the way in which the West’s Augustinian legacy continues to make heterosexual marriage the norm for all moral reflection on sexual identity and expression. The escalating controversy in the international Anglican community, she said, exposes the weaknesses of Johnson’s “deliberative democracy” model and other theoretical models that minimize the role of political and social power in the construction of sexual ideals.José Ignacio Cabezón, who holds the XIV Dalai Lama Chair in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented the final paper: “Is Homosexual Sex ‘Sexual Misconduct’? Critical Reflections on Some Classical Indo-Tibetan Sources.” Analyzing the changing portraits of sexual immorality in the Pali canon, Indian Sanskrit texts, and Tibetan scholastic treatises, Cabezón traced the evolution of monastic commentary on lay sexuality over the course of several centuries. What originated primarily as a simple prohibition against some forms of male adulterous activity, he explained, eventually became an unprecedented attempt to regulate intricate details of sexual behavior. Identifying Ansanga (fourth century ce) as the first Buddhist writer to proscribe same-sex activity between men, Cabezón suggested that changing social mores, intra-Buddhist debates, and the fertile monastic imagination contributed to the gradual elaboration of moral teaching in ancient and classical Buddhist literature.After the paper presentations, Richard Reilly, professor of philosophy at St. Bonaventure University, responded with provocative comments. He raised critical points about the significance of the distinction between sexual acts and erotic relationships, the strategic though limited value of “deliberative democracy” in multicultural faith communities, and the need for more rigorous comparative study of homophobic legislation in Buddhist and Abrahamic religious traditions. Sparking an engaging discussion among presenters and members of the audience, Reilly’s remarks underscored the importance of ongoing interdisciplinary investigations into homosexuality, the church, and the sangha.The society’s second session at the AAR provided a venue for former... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhism and the Idea of Human Rights:Resonances and Dissonances1Perry Schmidt-LeukelIn 1991 L.P.N. Perera, Professor of Pāli and Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka, published a Buddhist commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this commentary Perera tries to show that, in the Pāli canon, i.e. the canonical scripture of Theravāda Buddhism, for every single article of the Human Rights Declaration a substantial parallel or at least (...) a statement with a similar tendency can be found. Indeed, says Perera, Article 1, which affirms the dignity and rights of all humans, "is in complete accord with Buddhist thought, and may be said to be nothing new to Buddhism in conception" (Perera 1991:21). In contrast, the Buddhist Peter Junger, Professor of Law at the University of Cleveland, Ohio, judged in 1995 that... though followers of Buddhist traditions do value most, if not all, of the interests underlying the rhetoric of human rights, they may not have much use for the label itself, which is, after all, a product of the traditions of Western Europe and the parochial histories of that region.(Junger 1998: 56)Junger goes on to say that "the concept of human rights is not likely to be useful in...following the Buddha Dharma" (Junger 1998: 55).Thus Perera and Junger agree that the content of the various human rights is acceptable for Buddhists. However, they disagree strongly in their evaluation of the idea of human rights in itself. In this respect Damien Keown has rightly argued that the crucial question on 'Buddhism and Human Rights' is not so much whether Buddhism can accept any particular human right but rather whether the idea of human rights as such can find a philosophical justification within the "overall Buddhist vision of individual and social good" (Keown 1998: 24).It is this problem that I would like to pursue in this paper. In the first part I will sketch some basic characteristics of the idea of human rights. In the second part I will point out what resonances this idea finds in Buddhism or by which Buddhist concepts the human rights idea can be justified. And finally, in the third part, I will deal [End Page 33] with the question of potential dissonances between the idea of human rights and Buddhist concepts.On the Nature of Human RightsWith the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the various subsequent human rights conventions the rights of individuals were for the first time inscribed into international law, which had previously recognised only collectives as legal subjects. By formulating universal rights as valid for every individual human being regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. the Universal Declaration points to the most important feature of the idea of human rights: the protection of the individual or, to be more precise, the protection of the individual against powerful institutions of the state, society, religion or others. It is individual self-determination and free agency that are protected through human rights. Human rights define the minimum of what is necessary in order to guarantee the freedom of individual agency and the freedom of self-determination. By the definition of inalienable rights,2 the idea of human rights sets limits to those collectives and institutions in which we usually live, limits which for the sake of the basic liberty of the individual are not to be transgressed. Michael Ignatieff summarises this understanding of human rights with the words: "rights exist to protect individuals" (Ignatieff 2001: 67), and "they are worth having only if they can be enforced against institutions like the family, the state, and the church" (Ignatieff 2001: 66f.). Therefore "moral individualism" is "the core of the Universal Declaration" (Ignatieff 2001: 66).It is true that the further development of the human rights debate, particularly within the context of the United Nations, has led to an extension of the idea of human rights to collective rights and collective legal entities by including among human rights, for example, a nations' right to self-determination and the right to peace and the right to development. However, in my opinion it would be highly... (shrink)

Dasakathāvatthu appears to be a unique, but less known course of training in the Buddhist spiritual practice of the Theravāda tradition. Though the importance of the practice is highlighted, it is discussed with very little information in the Pāli Nikāya literature. But a well-informed discussion of the practice is found in the commentarial texts. One specific feature of the practice is that the path factors are defined as kathā suggesting that the practice is dialogical. This is in connection with (...) the Buddha’s advice that monks should spend their time either in dhamma-discussion or in noble silence. The dasakathāvatthu is an illustration of the kind of practice and talks that qualify for dhamma-discussion. The commentarial literature points out that the Buddha highly appreciates the one who, after being skilled in these talks, acts as a kalyānamitta and discusses them with others. The stress seems to be that the conversation one has with fellow practitioners is vital in one’s spiritual journey. In other words, the spiritual journey should consist in not walking alone but walking together. For my study of the subject, I used primarily the Pāli Nikāya texts and their commentaries as source materials. (shrink)

In Buddhism, Meditation and Free Will: A Theory of Mental Freedom , Rick Repetti explains how the dynamics of Buddhist meditation can result in a kind of metacognition and metavolitional control that exceeds what is required for free will and defeats the most powerful forms of free will skepticism. This article argues that although the Buddhist path requires and enhances the kind of mental and volitional control Repetti describes, the central dynamic of the path and meditation is better understood as (...) a process of habituation. This not only involves the dis‐identification from mental and emotional content that Repetti discusses—and is commonly emphasized in modern presentations of mindfulness or insight (vipassanā ) meditation—but also a transformation of the heart that is effected through the complementary psychological and somatic qualities associated with calm abiding (samatha ) and concentration (samādhi ) and emphasized in the Pali Nikāyas and commentaries. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the concept of intermediate existence in the early Buddhist theory of rebirth. The main sources investigated for this article are the Pāli canonical and commentarial literature. My main thesis is that early Buddhist discourses contain instances that suggest a spatial-temporal gap between death and rebirth known as ‘intermediate existence’, in contrast to the idea of Theravāda Buddhist theory that rebirth takes place immediately without a spatial-temporal gap. In order to prove this, I argue that the ‘one (...) who liberates in interval’ attains Nibbāna in the intermediate existence and the concept of gandhabbā in early Buddhist discourses refers to a being in intermediate existence, not to a dying consciousness, and there are indirect inferences to an spatiotemporal gap between death and rebirth in the early Buddhist discourses. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 66–75 ~*~ We’re Doomed. Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a poetry written in the graveyard of philosophy. Pessimism is a lyrical failure of philosophical thinking, each attempt at clear and coherent thought, sullen and submerged in the hidden joy of its own futility. The closest pessimism comes to philosophical argument is the droll and laconic “We’ll never make it,” or simply: “We’re doomed.” Every effort doomed to failure, every (...) project doomed to incompletion, every life doomed to be unlived, every thought doomed to be unthought. Pessimism is the lowest form of philosophy, frequently disparaged and dismissed, merely the symptom of a bad attitude. No one ever needs pessimism, in the way that one needs optimism to inspire one to great heights and to pick oneself up, in the way one needs constructive criticism, advice and feedback, inspirational books or a pat on the back. No one needs pessimism, though I like to imagine the idea of a pessimist activism. No one needs pessimism, and yet everyone—without exception—has, at some point in their lives, had to confront pessimism, if not as a philosophy then as a grievance—against one’s self or others, against one’s surroundings or one’s life, against the state of things or the world in general. There is little redemption for pessimism, and no consolation prize. Ultimately, pessimism is weary of everything and of itself. Pessimism is the philosophical form of disenchantment—disenchantment as chanting, a chant, a mantra, a solitary, monophonic voice rendered insignificant by the intimate immensity surrounding it. In pessimism, the first axiom is a long, low, funereal sigh. ~*~ We’re Still Doomed. No one has time for pessimism. After all, there are only so many hours in a day. Whatever our temperament, happy or sad, engaged or disengaged, we know pessimism when we hear it. The pessimist is usually understood as the complainer, forever pointing out what is wrong with the world without ever once offering a solution. But more often than not pessimists are the quietest of philosophers, submerging their own sighs within the lethargy of discontent. What little sound it makes is of interest to no one—“I’ve heard it all before,” “tell me something I don’t know,” sound and fury, signifying nothing. In raising problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes—the crime of not pretending it’s for real. Pessimism fails to live up to the most basic tenet of philosophy—the “as if.” Think as if it will be helpful, act as if it will make a difference, speak as if there is something to say, live as if you are not, in fact, being lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied. Had it more self-assurance and better social skills, pessimism would turn its disenchantment into a religion, possibly calling itself The Great Refusal. But there is a negation in pessimism that refuses even such a Refusal, an awareness that, from the start, it has already failed, and that the culmination of all that is, is that all is for naught. Pessimism tries very hard to present itself in the low, sustained tones of a Requiem Mass, or the tectonic rumbling of Tibetan chant. But it frequently lets loose dissonant notes at once plaintive and pathetic. Often, its voice cracks, its weighty words abruptly reduced to mere shards of guttural sound. ~*~ Maybe It’s Not So Bad, After All. If we know pessimism when we hear it, this is because we’ve heard it all before—and we didn’t need to hear it in the first place. Life is hard enough. What you need is a change of attitude, a new outlook, a shift in perspective... a cup of coffee. If we have no ears for pessimism, this is because it is always reducible to something as reliably mutable as a voice. If pessimism is so frequently disparaged, it is because it brings everyone down, determined as it is to view each day as a bad day, if only by virtue of the fact that it is not yet a bad day. For pessimism the world is brimming with negative possibility, the collision of a bad mood with an impassive world. In fact, pessimism is the result of a confusion between the world and a statement about the world, a confusion that also prevents it from fully entering the hallowed halls of philosophy. If pessimism is so often dismissed, this is because it is often impossible to separate a “bad mood” from a philosophical proposition (and do not all philosophies stem from a bad mood?) The very term “pessimism” suggests a school of thought, a movement, even a community. But pessimism always has a membership of one—maybe two. Ideally, of course, it would have a membership of none, with only a scribbled, illegible note left behind by someone long forgotten. But this seems unrealistic, though one can always hope. ~*~ Anatomy of Pessimism. Though it may locate itself at the margins of philosophy, pessimism is as much subject to philosophical analysis as any other form of thought. Pessimism’s lyricism of failure gives it the structure of music. What time is to the music of sorrow, reason is to a philosophy of the worst. Pessimism’s two major keys are moral and metaphysical pessimism, its subjective and objective poles, an attitude towards the world and a claim about the world. For moral pessimism, it is better not to have been born at all; for metaphysical pessimism, this is the worst of all possible worlds. For moral pessimism the problem is the solipsism of human beings, the world made in our own image, a world-for-us. For metaphysical pessimism, the problem is the solipsism of the world, objected and projected as a world-in-itself. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism are compromised philosophically; moral pessimism by its failure to locate the human within a larger context, and metaphysical pessimism by its failure to recognize the complicity in the very claim of realism. This is how pessimism makes its music of the worst, a generalized misanthropy without the anthropos . Pessimism crystallizes around this futility—it is its amor fati , rendered as musical form. ~*~ Melancholy of Anatomy. There is a logic of pessimism that is fundamental to its suspicion of philosophical system. Pessimism involves a statement about a condition . In pessimism each statement boils down to an affirmation or a negation, just as any condition boils down to the best or the worst. With Schopenhauer, that arch-pessimist, the thinker for whom the philosopher and the curmudgeon perfectly overlap, we see a no-saying to the worst, a no-saying that secretly covets a yes-saying (through asceticism, mysticism, quietism), even if this hidden yes-saying is a horizon at the limits of comprehension. With Nietzsche comes the pronouncement of a Dionysian pessimism, a pessimism of strength or joy, a yes-saying to the worst, a yes-saying to this world as it is. And with Cioran yet another variation, futile yet lyrical, a no-saying to the worst, and a further no-saying to the possibility of any other world, in here or out there. With Cioran one approaches, but never reaches, an absolute no-saying, a studied abandonment of pessimism itself. The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer’s tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself, or Nietzsche’s laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran’s sleep). Crying, laughing, sleeping—what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent? ~*~ Cosmic Pessimism. Both moral and metaphysical pessimism point to another kind, a pessimism that is neither subjective nor objective, neither for-us nor in-itself, and instead a pessimism of the world-without-us. We could call this a cosmic pessimism ... but this sounds too majestic, too full of wonder, too much the bitter aftertaste of the Great Beyond. Words falter. And so do ideas. And so we have a cosmic pessimism, a pessimism that is first and last a pessimism about cosmos , about the necessity and possibility of order. The contours of cosmic pessimism are a drastic scaling-up or scaling-down of the human point of view, the unhuman orientation of deep space and deep time, and all of this shadowed by an impasse, a primordial insignificance, the impossibility of ever adequately accounting for one’s relationship to thought—all that remains of pessimism is the desiderata of affects—agonistic, impassive, defiant, reclusive, filled with sorrow and flailing at that architectonic chess match called philosophy, a flailing that pessimism tries to raise to the level of an art form (though what usually results is slapstick). ~*~ Song of Futility. An ethics of futility pervades pessimism. Futility, however, is different from fatality, and different again from simple failure (though failure is never simple). Failure is a breakage within the heart of relations, a fissure between cause and effect, a fissure hastily covered over by trying and trying again. With failure, there is always plenty of blame to go around; it’s not my fault, it’s a technical difficulty, it’s a miscommunication. For the pessimist, failure is a question of “when,” not “if”—failure as a metaphysical principle. Everything withers and passes into an obscurity blacker than night, everything from the melodramatic decline of a person’s life to the banal flickering moments that constitute each day. Everything that is done undone, everything said or known destined for a kind of stellar oblivion. When scaled up in this way, failure becomes fatality. Fatality is the hermeticism of cause and effect. In fatality, everything you do, whatever you do, always leads to a certain end, and ultimately to the end—though that end, or the means to that end, remain shrouded in obscurity. Nothing you do makes a difference because everything you do makes a difference. Hence the effects of your actions are hidden from you, even as you deceive yourself into thinking that, at last, this time you will outwit the order of things. By having a goal, planning ahead, and thinking things through carefully, we attempt, in a daily Prometheanism, to turn fatality to our advantage, to gain a glimpse of an order that seems buried deeper and deeper in the fabric of the universe. But even fatality has its comforts. The chain of cause and effect may be hidden from us, but that’s just because disorder is the order we don’t yet see; it’s just complex, distributed, and requires advanced mathematics. Fatality still clings to the sufficiency of everything that exists... When fatality relinquishes even this idea, it becomes futility. Futility arises out of the grim suspicion that, behind the shroud of causality we drape over the world, there is only the indifference of what exists or doesn’t exist; whatever you do ultimately leads to no end, an irrevocable chasm between thought and world. Futility transforms the act of thinking into a zero-sum game. ~*~ Song of the Worst. At the center of pessimism lies the term pessimus , “the worst,” a term as relative as it is absolute. The worst is about as bad as it gets, “the worst” as “the best” in disguise, shrouded by the passage of time or the twists and turns of fortune. For the pessimist, “the worst” is the propensity for suffering that gradually occludes each living moment, until it eclipses it entirely, overlapping perfectly in death... which, for the pessimist, is no longer “the worst.” Pessimism is marked by an unwillingness to move beyond “the worst,” something only partially attributable to a lack in motivation. In pessimism “the worst” is the ground that gives way beneath every existent—things could be worse, and , things could be better. “The worst” invariably implies a value judgment, one made based on scant evidence and little experience; in this way, pessimism’s greatest nemesis is its moral orientation. Pessimism’s propositions have all the gravitas of a bad joke. Perhaps this is why the true optimists are the most severe pessimists—they are optimists that have run out of options. They are almost ecstatically inundated by the worst. Such an optimism is the only possible outcome of a prolonged period of suffering, physical or metaphysical, intellectual or spiritual. But does this not also describe all the trials and tribulations of each day—in short, of “life?” It seems that sooner or later we are all doomed to become optimists of this sort (the most depressing of thoughts...) ~*~ Song of Doom. Rather than serving as a cause for despair, gloom and doom are the forms of consolation for any pessimist philosophy. Neither quite affects nor quite concepts, gloom and doom transform pessimism into a mortification of philosophy. Doom is not just the sense that all things will turn out badly, but that all things inevitably come to an end, irrespective of whether or not they really do come to an end. What emerges from doom is a sense of the unhuman as an attractor, a horizon towards which the human is fatally drawn. Doom is humanity given over to unhumanity in an act of crystalline self-abnegation. Gloom is not simply the anxiety that precedes doom. Gloom is literally atmospheric, climate as much as impression, and if people are also gloomy, this is simply the by-product of an anodyne atmosphere that only incidentally involves human beings. Gloom is more climatological than psychological, the stuff of dim, hazy, overcast skies, of ruins and overgrown tombs, of a misty, lethargic fog that moves with the same languorousness as our own crouched and sullen listening to a disinterested world. In a sense, gloom is the counterpoint to doom—what futility is to the former, fatality is to the latter. Doom is marked by temporality—all things precariously drawn to their end—whereas gloom is the austerity of stillness, all things sad, static, and suspended, a meandering smoke hovering over cold lichen stones and damp fir trees. If doom is the terror of temporality and death, then gloom is the horror of a hovering stasis that is life. At times I like to imagine that this realization alone is the thread that connects the charnel ground Aghori and the graveyard poets. ~*~ Song of Spite. There is an intolerance in pessimism that knows no bounds. In pessimism spite begins by fixing on a particular object of spite—someone one hardly knows, or someone one knows too well; a spite for this person or a spite for all of humanity; a spectacular or a banal spite; a spite for a noisy neighbor, a yapping dog, a battalion of strollers, the meandering idiot walking in front of you on their smart phone, large loud celebrations, traumatic injustices anywhere in the world regurgitated as media blitz, spite for the self-absorbed and overly performative people talking way too loud at the table next to you, technical difficulties and troubleshooting, the reduction of everything to branding, spite of the refusal to admit one’s own errors, of self-help books, of people who know absolutely everything and make sure to tell you, of all people, all living beings, all things, the world, the spiteful planet, the inanity of existence... Spite is the motor of pessimism because it is so egalitarian, so expansive, it runs amok, stumbling across intuitions that can only half-heartedly be called philosophical. Spite lacks the confidence and the clarity of hatred, but it also lacks the almost cordial judgment of dislike. For the pessimist, the smallest detail can be an indication of a metaphysical futility so vast and funereal that it eclipses pessimism itself—a spite that pessimism carefully places beyond the horizon of intelligibility, like the experience of dusk, or like the phrase, “it is raining jewels and daggers.” ~*~ Song of Sleep. A paraphrase of Schopenhauer: what death is for the organism, sleep is for the individual. Pessimists sleep not because they are depressed, but because for them sleep is a form of ascetic practice. Sleep is the askesis of pessimism. If, while sleeping, we have a bad dream, we abruptly wake up, and suddenly the horrors of the night vanish. There is no reason to think that the same does not happen with the bad dream we call “life.” ~*~ Song of Sorrow. Nietzsche, commenting on pessimism, once castigated Schopenhauer for taking things too lightly. He writes: ...Schopenhauer, though a pessimist, really —played the flute. Every day, after dinner: one should read his biography on that. And incidentally: a pessimist, one who denies God and the world but comes to a stop before morality—who affirms morality and plays the flute... what? Is that really—a pessimist? We know that Schopenhauer did possess a collection of instruments, and we also know that Nietzsche himself composed music. There is no reason to think that either of them would ever banish music from the Republic of philosophy. But Nietzsche’s jibes at Schopenhauer are as much about music as they are about pessimism. For the pessimist who says no to everything and yet finds comfort in music, the no-saying of pessimism can only be a weak way of saying yes—the weightiest statement undercut by the flightiest of replies. The least that Schopenhauer could’ve done is to play the bass. I’m not a big fan of the flute, or, for that matter, wind instruments generally. But what Nietzsche forgets is the role that the flute has historically played in Greek tragedy. In tragedy, the flute ( aulos ) is not an instrument of levity and joy, but of solitude and sorrow. The Greek aulos not only expresses the grief of tragic loss, but it does so in a way that renders weeping and singing inseparable from each other. The classicist Nicole Loraux calls this the mourning voice . Set apart from the more official civic rituals of funerary mourning, the mourning voice of Greek tragedy constantly threatens to dissolve song into wailing, music into moaning, and the voice into a primordial, disarticulate anti-music. The mourning voice delineates all the forms of suffering—tears, weeping, sobbing, wailing, moaning, and the convulsions of thought reduced to an elemental unintelligibility. In the collapsed space between the voice that speaks and the voice that sings, pessimism discovers its mourning voice. Pessimism: the failure of sound and sense, the disarticulation of phone and logos . Have we rescued Schopenhauer from Nietzsche? Probably not. Perhaps Schopenhauer played the flute to remind himself of the real function of the mourning voice—sorrow, sighs, and moaning rendered indistinguishable from music, the crumbling of the human into the unhuman. Failure par excellence of pessimism. ~*~ Song of Nothing. In Buddhist thought, the First Noble Truth of existence is encapsulated in the Pali term dukkha , conventionally translated as “suffering,” “sorrow,” or “misery.” The Buddhist teachings are clear, however, that this is an objective claim, and not simply one point of view among others. Existence is suffering and sorrow—and yet this is not, the teachings tell us, a pessimistic attitude. It is likely that Schopenhauer, reading the Buddhist texts available to him, recognized some filiation with the concept of dukkha . But dukkha is a multi-faceted term. There is, certainly, dukkha in the usual sense of the suffering, strife, and loss associated with living a life. But this is, in turn, dependent on the finitude and temporality of dukkha , existence as determined by impermanence and imperfection. And this ultimately points to the way in which both suffering and finitude are grounded by the paradoxical groundlessness of dukkha as a metaphysical principle—the insubstantiality and the emptiness of all that is. Beyond what is worse to me, beyond a world ordered for the worst, there is the emptiness of dukkha as an impersonal suffering... the tears of the cosmos. In this context, it is easy to see how Schopenhauer’s pessimism attempts to compress all the aspects of dukkha into a nothingness at the core of existence, a Willlessness coursing through the Will. Though one thing for certain is that with Schopenhauer we do not find the “ever-smiling” countenance of Buddhism—or do we? The texts of the Pali Canon also contain lists of the different types of happiness—including the happiness of renunciation and the strange happiness of detachment. But Buddhism considers even the different types of happiness as part of dukkha , in this final sense of nothingness or emptiness. Perhaps Schopenhauer understood Buddhism better than he is usually given credit for. Thus the experiment of Schopenhauer’s philosophy—the point at which a Western pessimus and an Eastern dukkha overlap or exchange glances. Empty sorrow, a lyricism of indifference. The result is a strange, and ultimately untenable, nocturnal form of Buddhism. ~*~ Cioran once called music a “physics of tears.” If this is true, then perhaps metaphysics is its commentary. Or its apology. ~*~ Pessimism would be more mystical were it not for its defeatism. Mysticism is much too proactive for the pessimist, and pessimism too impassive even for the mystic. At the same time, there is something enviable about mysticism—despite its sufferings. There is a sense in which pessimists are really failed mystics. ~*~ You, the Night, and the Music. In a suggestive passage, Schopenhauer once noted that, “music is the melody to which the world is the text." Given Schopenhauer’s view on life—that life is suffering, that human life is absurd, that the nothingness before my birth is equal to the nothingness after my death—given all this, one wonders what kind of music Schopenhauer had in mind when he described music as the melody to which the world is text—was it opera, a Requiem Mass, a madrigal, or perhaps a drinking song? Or something like Eine kleine Nachtmusik , a little night music for the twilight of thought, a sullen nocturne for the night-side of logic, an era of sad wings sung by a solitary banshee. Perhaps the music Schopenhauer had in mind is music eliminated to non-music. A whisper would suffice. Perhaps a sigh of fatigue or resignation, perhaps a moan of despair or sorrow. Perhaps a sound just articulate enough that it could be heard to dissipate. ~*~ Teach me to laugh through tears. ~*~ Pessimism always falls short of being philosophical. My back aches, my knees hurt, I couldn’t sleep last night, I’m stressed-out, and I think I’m finally coming down with something. Pessimism abjures all pretenses towards system—towards the purity of analysis and the dignity of critique. We didn’t really think we could figure it out, did we? It was just passing time, taking a piss, something to do, a bold gesture put forth in all its fragility, according to rules that we have agreed to forget that we made up in the first place. Every thought marked by a shadowy incomprehension that precedes it, and a futility that undermines it. That pessimism speaks, in whatever voice, is the singing testimony to this futility and this incomprehension—take a chance and step outside, lose some sleep and say you tried... ~*~ Is there a music of pessimism? And would such a music be audible? ~*~ The impact of music on a person compels them to put their experience into words. When this fails, the result is a faltering of thought and language that is itself a kind of music. Cioran writes: “Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.” ~*~ If a thinker like Schopenhauer has any redeeming qualities, it is that he identified the great lie of Western culture—the preference for existence over non-existence. As he notes: “If we knocked on the graves and asked the dead whether they would like to rise again, they would shake their heads.” In Western cultures it is commonly accepted that one celebrates birth and mourns death. But there must be a mistake here. Wouldn’t it make more sense to mourn birth and celebrate death? Strange though, because the mourning of birth would, presumably, last the entirety of that person’s life, so that mourning and living would the be same thing. ~*~ To the musical idea of the harmony of the universe corresponds the philosophical principle of sufficient reason. Like the music of mourning, pessimism gives voice to the inevitable breakdown of word and song. In this way, music is the overtone of thought. ~*~ The Patron Saints of Pessimism. The patron saints of pessimism watch over suffering. Laconic and sullen, the patron saints of pessimism never seem to do a good job at protecting, interceding, or advocating for those who suffer. Perhaps they need us more than we need them. Lest we forget, there do exist patron saints of philosophy, but their stories are not happy ones. There is, for instance, the fourth century Saint Catherine of Alexandria, or Catherine of the Wheel, named after the torture device used on her. A precocious fourteen year old scholar, Catherine was subject to continual persecution. After all forms of torture failed—including the “breaking wheel”—the emperor finally settled for her decapitation, a violent yet appropriate reminder of the protector of philosophers. There are also patron saints of music and musicians, but theirs too are sad stories. In the second century, Saint Cecilia was also subject to persecution and torture. As she knelt to receive the blade that would separate her head from her body, she ardently sang a song to God. It took three attempts before she was fully decapitated, all the while she continued, perhaps miraculously, to sing. Does pessimism not deserve its own patron saints, even if they are unworthy of martyrdom? But in our search, even the most ardent nay-sayers frequently lapse into brief moments of enthusiasm—Pascal’s love of solitude, Leopardi’s love of poetry, Schopenhauer’s love of music, Nietzsche’s love of Schopenhauer, and so on. Should one then focus on individual works of pessimism? We could include Kierkegaard’s trilogy of horror— Sickness Unto Death , The Concept of Dread , and Fear and Trembling —but all these are undermined by their fabricated and unreliable authors. Besides, how can one separate the pessimist from the optimist in works like Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life , Shestov’s Postetas Clavium , or Edgar Saltus’ under-read The Philosophy of Disenchantment ? Even in cases where the entire corpus of an author is pessimistic, the project always seems incomplete—witness Cioran’s trajectory, from his first book, On the Heights of Despair , to the last unpublished notebooks of acrid and taut aphorisms. And this is to say nothing of literary pessimism, from Goethe’s sorrowful Werther, to Dostoevsky’s underground man, to Pessoa’s disquiet scribbler; Baudelaire’s spleen and ennui, the mystical Satanism of Huysmans and Strindberg, the hauntologies of Mário de Sá-Carniero, Izumi Kyoka, H.P. Lovecraft, grumpy old Beckett... even the great pessimist comedians. All that remains are singular, perhaps anomalous statements of pessimism, a litany of quotes and citations crammed into fortune cookies. Patron saints are traditionally named after a locale, either a place of birth or of a mystical experience. Perhaps the better approach is to focus on the places where pessimists were forced to live out their pessimism—Schopenhauer facing an empty Berlin lecture hall, Nietzsche mute and convalescent at the home of his sister, Wittgenstein the relinquished professor and solitary gardener, Cioran grappling with Alzheimer’s in his tiny writing alcove in the Latin Quarter. ~*~ There’s a ghost that grows inside of me, damaged in the making, and there’s a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there’s a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down. ~*~ If pessimism has any pedagogical value, it is that the failure of pessimism as a philosophy is inextricably tied to the failure of pessimism as voice. I read the following, from Shestov’s The Apotheosis of Groundlessness : When a person is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn humankind. Later, becoming more modest, he begins to doubt his truths: and then he tries to convince himself. A few more years go by, and he knows he was mistaken all round, so there is no need to convince himself. Nevertheless he continues to write, because he is not fit for any other work, and to be accounted a superfluous person is so horrible. (shrink)

The article discusses the relevance of the syntactical implications of the absolutive ending (lyabanta) in interpreting the Madhyamaka term upādāyaprajñapti, and hence Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 18.24. The views of both Sanskrit and Pāli classical grammarians are taken into account, and a comparison is made between some contemporary English translations of MMK 18.24 as against Candrakīrti’s commentary. The conclusion suggests that Candrakīrti is grammatically accurate and perceptive, that he may have been aware of the tradition of Candragomin’s grammar, and that the structural (...) analogy between upādāyaprajñapti and pratītyasamutpāda may be relevant in understanding the relationship between notional and existential dependence. (shrink)

Philosophers interested in what Buddhist ethics has to offer contemporary debates have largely focused on finding distinctively Buddhist reasons to choose to act ethically. But this may be to miss the point. Maria Heim’s recent study illustrates vividly how a very different conception of intention, agency, and ethics emerges from the canonical Pāli texts and the extensive commentaries on these attributed to the fifth-century author Buddhaghosa. She finds in this textual tradition a sophisticated moral anthropology and moral phenomenology, (...) one that focuses not on providing reasons against acting in ways we should not, but instead on providing tools for constructing ourselves such that the question of whether to act in an unwholesome way simply would not occur to us.In the first chapter, Heim engages with the approach to intention and agency found in the Suttas, by bringing in the complex distinctions and textual connections that Buddhaghosa adds to these discussions. To note just one hi .. (shrink)

Bradley S. Clough’s Early Indian and Theravāda Buddhism seeks to retrieve the soteriological diversity of early Buddhism that has been masked by the systematizing efforts of the Theravāda commentarial tradition. Deliberately breaking from the custom of reading the Pali Canon through the systematizing lens of the great fifth-century CE commentator Buddhaghosa, his monumental Visuddhimagga in particular, Clough points to evidence in the canonical texts for a variety of paths to liberation that resist efforts at harmonization and integration. Chapter 1 examines (...) evidence in the Canon for two paths in particular: the path of concentration and the path of wisdom or insight . These two paths correspond to two forms of meditative practice, namely, the cultivation of tranquility and the cultivation of insight . In the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa will integrate these into a single path, specifically a three-stage sequence—morality, concentrati .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There Is Not by Zhihua YaoChong Fu (bio)Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There Is Not. By Zhihua Yao. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Pp. 186. Hardcover £29.99, isbn 978-1-35-012148-5. Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There Is Not, by Zhihua Yao, cogently strings together different Buddhist schools' varied philosophical approaches to the cognition of nonexistent objects (...) (asadālambanajñāna) or non-cognition (anupalabdhi). Non-being and the knowledge of non-being have long been central to nearly every philosophical tradition. Buddhist philosophy, in particular, invests extraordinary intellectual effort to deal with these topics, since non-being (asat/abhāva) occupies a central role in the Buddhist doctrine. Yao acutely reconstructs a brief history of this philosophical enterprise of Buddhism from the early sectarian period to the time when the so-called logico-epistemological school prevailed. The book consists of an introduction and eight chapters. These eight chapters are basically based on Yao's previously published articles. They are further arranged into two parts: (1) "Cognition of Nonexistent Objects: A Historical Development" and (2) "Epistemological Approaches to Nonexistence." The first part discusses how philosophers from the Mahāsāṃghika, the Dārṣṭāntika, and the Yogācāra analyze the cognition of nonexistent objects. The philosophical development concerning this particular topic is masterfully articulated by Yao. This mastery is best shown in his unveiling of Yogācāra's philosophical inheritance from its Abhidharma legacy. In addition, his reconstruction deepens our understanding of the intricate history of sectarian Buddhism in a broader sense. The second part centers on the philosophical issues of nonexistence raised by the Buddhist logico-epistemological school. Yao's translation, presentation, and comparison of these philosophical arguments is strikingly lucid and comprehensive. Overall, one salient contribution of this book is that it highlights the importance of Pāli and Chinese sources in studying the history of Buddhist philosophy, especially Indian Buddhist philosophy. In Part 1, Yao's reconstruction of sectarian Buddhist philosophies is heavily based on the Pāli text Kathāvatthu and the Chinese translations of Samayabhedoparacanacakra, Śāriputrābhidharma, Vijñānakāya, Mahāvibhāṣā, *Janakaparamopadeśa, and Nyāyānusāra, whose Sanskrit or Prakrit originals have long been lost. In part 2, in [End Page 1] addition to comprehensively assessing Sanskrit and Tibetan materials, Yao detects a much-hidden philosophical development from Īśvarasena to Dharmakīrti by relying on Chinese commentaries composed by Chinese and Korean monks in the Tang Dynasty. Chapter 1 is of the most importance in the book; in it, Yao traces "an early origin of the concept of the cognition of nonexistent objects among the Mahāsaṃghikas and some Vibhajyavādins under their influence" (p. 13). Yao sensitively points out that "the thesis that latent defilements (Pāli: anusaya/Skt: anuśaya) have no objects constitutes the first step toward the formation of the concept of the cognition of nonexistent objects" (p. 19). The next step, as Yao analyzes it, is the proposition of awareness (Pāli: ñāṇa/Skt: jñāna) without objects due to the Mahāsaṃghikas and its sub-schools. Yao's philosophical reconstruction is eloquent and perceptive, especially when he outlines a crucial conceptual transition from the awareness that is without objects (anālambanaṃ jñānam) to the awareness that has nonexistent objects as its objects (asadālambanajñāna). However, one of the main supporting materials that he believes mentions the awareness that has nonexistent objects as its objects -- a passage from the Śāriputrābhidharma -- might be found less supportive without a more detailed justification. This passage is concerned with the concept of wu jingjie zhi 無境界智:What is the awareness without objects (wu jingjie zhi 無境界智)? There is no awareness without objects. Or, the awareness that arises when conceptualizing the past and the future dharmas is called the awareness without objects.1《舍利弗阿毘曇論》卷 9〈4 智品〉：「云何無境界智？無無境界智。復次思惟過 去未來法智生，是名無境界智。」(CBETA 2022.Q4, T28, no. 1548, p. 593c16–18)。Yao chooses an alternative reading based solely on the Taisho Edition, which interpolates one more 境 in 無無境界智 as 無境無境界智. This reading might result in a wholly different meaning: "What is awareness without objects? Any awareness that... (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to train an artificial neural network model for predicting student failure in the academic leveling course of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional of Ecuador, based on academic and socioeconomic information. For this, 1308 higher education students participated, 69.0% of whom failed the academic leveling course; besides, 93.7% of the students self-identified as mestizo, 83.9% came from the province of Pichincha, and 92.4% belonged to general population. As a first approximation, a neural network model was trained (...) with twelve variables containing students’ academic and socioeconomic information. Then, a dimensionality reduction process was performed from which a new neural network was modeled. This dimension reduced model was trained with the variables application score, vulnerability index, regime, gender, and population segment, which were the five variables that explained more than 80% of the first model. The classification accuracy of the dimension reduced model was 0.745, while precision and recall were 0.883 and 0.778, respectively. The area under ROC curve was 0.791. This model could be used as a guide to lead intervention policies so that the failure rate in the academic leveling course would decrease. (shrink)

1. (no separate title) -- 2. Khristii︠a︡nska antropologii︠a︡. Filosofii︠a︡ na morala i khristiia︡nskata etika.