Without Karma and Nirvāṇa, Buddhism Is Nihilism

Abstract

This chapter explains the distinctive approach to emptiness or “the lack of own-being of phenomena” that is developed in the Scripture on the Clarification of the Sage’s Intent (Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra) and theorized by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Against the stereotypical view that Yogācāra is intrinsically opposed to Madhyamaka, it is argued that these texts seek only to prevent an extreme, “nihilistic” reading of Mahāyāna-a reading that would call into question the core Buddhist doctrines of karma and nirvāna. The Yogācāra contribution to the interpretation of emptiness is a new theorization of the doctrine’s linguistic frame: emptiness, properly understood, cannot thoroughly undermine karma and nirvāna, because (1) it is inconceivable, and so is strictly “beyond disputation”, and (2) its proper understanding only arises after, and in dependence upon, one having gained confidence in them. The disputational, anti-Hīnayāna rhetoric of much of Mahāyāna is thus replaced with an ecumenical, pan-Buddhist inclusivism, based in an acknowledgement that until liberation, the ultimate is inconceivable.

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