THE C01\NHE.

RDS

Copyrighted material
 oonpat s
Ethics and Emptiness

THE COWHERDS

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyrighted material
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of

Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research,
scholarship, and education. by publishing world\vide.

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong K.011g Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei 'Toronto

With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Gu.atemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South I(orea Switzerland Thailand Turl<ey Ulcraine Vietnam

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by

Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

© Oxford University Press 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, \vtthout the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,
by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.
Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this worl< i n any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN978 -0-19-026050 978-0-19-026
-7 (hbk.); 51 0
-4 (pbk.)

98 6
7 5432 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

Copyrighted material
Contents

Acl<nowledgments, vii

List of Contributors, ix

Introduction: Why Asl< about Madhyamal<a and Ethics?, 1

Jay L. Ga,field and Graham Priest
1. The Many Voices of Buddhist Ethics, 7
Charles Goodman and Sonam Thakchoe

2. Aiming at Happiness, Aiming at Ultimate Truth-In Practice, 21

Amber Carpenter

3. The Dismal Slough, 4 3

J(oji Tanaka

4. The Santideva Passage: Bodhicaryavatara VIII.90-103, 55

Jay L. Ga,field, Stephen Jenkins, and Graham Priest
5. Buddhist Ethics in the Context of Conventional Truth: Path
and Transformation, 77
Jay L. Gaifield
6. Wal<ing into Compassion: The Three Alambana of Karu,:,,a, 97
Stephen Jenkins
7. Does "Buddhist Ethics" Exist?, 119
Mark Siderits

Copyrighted material
Vl CONTENTS

8. From Madhyamal<a to Consequentialism: A Road Map, 141

Charles Goodman

9. The Prasangil<a's Ethics of Momentary Disintegration

(Vinasa Bhava): Causally Effective I<armic Moments, 159
Sonam Thakchoe
10. How Does Merely Conventional I(arma Worl<?, 183
Guy Newland

11. The Connection Between Ontology and Ethics in Madhyamal<a

Thought, 203
Jan Westerhoff
12. Compassion and the Net of Indra, 221
Graham Priest

Appendix: Bodhicaryavatara-panjika VIII.90-103 by Prajiial<aramati,

Commenting on Santideva, 241
Translated by Mark Siderits and Charles Goodman
References, 249

Index, 261

Copyrighted material
Wal<ing into Compassion
The Three Alambana of Karuna
Stephen Jenkins

Anyone who becomes familiar with Buddhist thought

eventually has to deal with the question of how compassion
can be meaningful, if both its agent and its object are
ultimately unreal. The ultimate truth of Buddhism, whether
that truth is no-self or emptiness, seems to deny both the
object of compassion and the compassionate subject. The
Buddhist ethic, which talzes the suffering of sentient beings
seriously, seems to be at odds with its ultimate truth, which
denies the very existence of those beings. This chapter begins
by talzing up how this presents itself to us as a philosophical
and interpretive problem, and then investigates Indian
Buddhist sources that recognized and directly addressed these
problems in systematic thought. The motif of the three objects,
or alambana, of karu1Ja served as a frame for discussing how
compassion made sense to Madhyamika thinlzers such as
Candralzirti, Santideva, and Prajfialzaramati.
The apparent problem with the concept of no-self is
obvious: Who is the object and who is the agent of this compassion?
In Abhidharma thought, this is moderated by the affirmation of an
incessantly self-renewing causal continuity of temporally ephemeral
and physically microscopic elements, the negation of macro-realities
and affirmation of micro-realities. It is this continuity that is the
referent for the word "self," and it is a substantial basis. The whole
effort to understand and control that causal continuity, sarp.tana,

Copyrighted material