A Buddhist Cosmological View — Vũ-trụ-quan Phật học¶
Pipeline-assisted English translation of the 1957 Vietnamese Buddhist journal article,
produced as part of the tnh-gen journal walkthrough.
Author: Thạc-Đức
Source: Phật Giáo Việt Nam, issue 17–18, 1957
Pages: 7–11 of the journal scan
Attribution note: The byline Thạc-Đức is associated with Trần Thạc Đức, a pen name appearing in the 1950s Phật Giáo Việt Nam corpus. Scholarship by Adrienne Minh-Châu Lê identifies Thạc Đức as one of Thích Nhất Hạnh's pen names during his editorship of the journal (Lê 2024; see also Plum Village 2014).
This document is a pipeline-assisted translation produced by tnh-gen using the
translate_journal_section_en prompt against cleaned OCR text from scanned journal pages.
It is offered as a research baseline and working draft, not a final scholarly translation.
A Buddhist Cosmological View¶
I. Introduction and a Critique of Three Indian Philosophical Tendencies¶
(Bối cảnh tư tưởng Ấn Độ và phê bình ba khuynh hướng sai lạc)
In the time of the Buddha, the question of the fundamental principle of all things was one to which the Indian intellectual world gave great attention. The Brahmajāla Sutta records as many as sixty-two different explanations advanced by the Indian philosophical schools of that period. Broadly speaking, three tendencies may be discerned:
1. The tendency of fatalism (Pubba kata hetu)
The philosophical schools belonging to this tendency held that both the natural world and the human world were arranged by predestination. Everything proceeded according to pre-existing natural laws. The value of human effort and material agency was not recognized here.
2. The tendency of theism, or divine-volition theory (Issara-nimmana hetu)
The philosophical schools of this tendency held that all things exist through the will of a divine being. That divine being here is Brahmā, and the center of the philosophical schools belonging to this tendency is Brahmanism.
3. The tendency of accidentalism (Ahetu apaccaya)
The philosophical schools of this tendency did not admit any principle of causality. All phenomena arise and exist accidentally, without conforming to any law or principle whatsoever.
The first and second tendencies assign all responsibility to a supernatural power. Personal responsibility here does not become an issue; misfortune and blessing alike are things that human beings cannot determine. Human actions, whether wholesome or unwholesome, are not the motive force behind success, failure, ruin, or fulfillment.
The third tendency likewise cannot establish any foundation for personal moral responsibility. If everything is accidental, then good is accidental, evil is accidental, misfortune and blessing are accidental as well; there is nothing that can serve as a standard for human conduct. Consequently, human beings cannot gradually advance toward truth, beauty, and goodness; on the contrary, they may very easily slide down into sinfulness and depravity.
From the theoretical point of view, the doctrines belonging to the above tendencies all contain many defects. From the human point of view, the consequences they bring about are dark and discouraging. None of them can provide human beings with inner assurance and a basis on which to establish their lives, nor can they affirm the necessary and already-present capacities of the human person.
The Buddha's standpoint is to elucidate the principle of the universe as the foundation for a way of human life. That principle must accord with the truth of the myriad phenomena, and that way of life must lead human beings to the fulfillment of an ethical and religious value. The Buddha's purpose in expounding the Dīrgha Āgama was not to attack the theoretical schemes of others, but solely to reject erroneous philosophical views that could obstruct the moral and liberative realization of human beings.
II. The Worldview of Conditionality and the Principle of Dependent Arising¶
(Thế giới quan nhân duyên và nguyên lý duyên sinh)
The worldview taught by the Buddha is a worldview of conditionality (Paticca-samuppāda). All phenomena depend upon one another for their establishment. All are intimately related to one another. Without that interrelation, not a single thing could be established. That interrelation is precisely called causes and conditions. In the scriptures, the terms CAUSE (hetu), CONDITION (paccaya), CONDITIONING FACTOR (nidāna), and ARISING (samudaya) are all different names indicating that relation. The Buddha defined conditionality as follows:
"If this exists, that exists; if this arises, that arises; if this is absent, that is absent; if this ceases, that ceases.
(If this is, then that is; if this arises, then that arises; if this is not, then that is not; if this ceases, then that ceases. ...)"
To say, "If this exists, that exists; if this is absent, that is absent," is to present the relation among things existing simultaneously. To say, "If this arises, that arises; if this ceases, that ceases," is to present the relation among things existing at different times. All dharmas arise, cease, and exist within that very close web of mutual interrelation; no dharma (phenomenon) can exist independently or absolutely. When the cause comes first and the effect later, this is called temporally distinct causation; when cause and effect occur at the same time, this is called simultaneous causation. One cause may have different effects depending on the accompanying subsidiary conditions. Therefore, there can be no absolute cause, and there can also be no absolute effect.
The world is woven out of systems of simultaneous conditionality (from the standpoint of space) and systems of temporally distinct conditionality (from the standpoint of time). This is the Buddhist conception of causality. In the sutras and treatises, the term conditioned dharmas (samkhata-dhamma) refers precisely to the phenomena of this world of causes and conditions. All are impermanent and changing, precisely because of conditional interrelation; for within the world of conditionality, there can be no phenomena that are permanent or eternal. It is on the basis of this conception of dependent arising that Buddhism rejects the idea of the world's creation by a self-possessed Supreme God. This is something we cannot fail to acknowledge.
According to the Huayan school, the whole universe is an endlessly layered system of interpenetrating dependent arising. Huayan doctrine, in this way, was established upon the causal vision of the Āgamas. The Abhidharma works of Southern Buddhism also classified causes and conditions for the purposes of observation and inquiry, and this too was precisely the principal task of the Sthavira scholastics. (The Mahāpaṭṭhāna distinguishes as many as 24 conditions; fascicle 25 of the Śāriputra Abhidharma Śāstra distinguishes 10 conditions; the Sarvāstivāda maintains 4 conditions.)
Here, we shall only briefly examine two types: temporally distinct causation and simultaneous causation.
III. Simultaneous and Successive Causality in the Structure of the World¶
(Đồng thời nhân quả và dị thời nhân quả trong cấu trúc thế giới)
1. The problem of simultaneous causality is also the problem of the subjective and the objective.
The Buddha taught that the world is the intercourse between subjective cognition and objective objects. Apart from this, there is nothing that can still be called the world:
"Bhikkhus, I wish to explain to you the problem of 'the all' (all dharmas). Listen carefully.
Bhikkhus, what is called 'the all' (all dharmas)? It is the eye in relation to forms, the ear in relation to sounds, the nose in relation to odors, the tongue in relation to tastes, the body in relation to tangibles, and the mind in relation to dharmas. Bhikkhus, this is called 'the all' (all dharmas)." (Saṃyutta-nikāya)
Thus, the world is established upon the cognitive relation between the six sense faculties and the six sense objects. Outside the six faculties and the six objects, everything is meaningless for us. Therefore, as the Buddha taught, if there is no subjective side, there is no objective side; if there is no object, there is no subject. If the relation between the subjective and the objective is severed, the world cannot be established. Everything is established upon that relation, just as two reeds stand firm only by leaning on one another:
"Friends, just as two reeds, tied together and leaning upon one another, are able to stand, so too, conditioned by Name-and-Form (le nom et la forme), there is Consciousness; conditioned by Consciousness, there is Name-and-Form.... Of the two reeds, if one is removed, the other falls; if the other is removed, this one falls. So it is, friend: with the cessation of Name-and-Form, Consciousness ceases; with the cessation of Consciousness, Name-and-Form ceases...."
Name-and-Form here refers to the physiological organization (Saṃyutta) and the psychological organization of sentient beings, serving as the object of "Consciousness," that is, the subjective cognitive aspect. But Name-and-Form is not something existing separately outside Consciousness. The two depend upon one another for their establishment. Between them there is a marvelous relation: it is not that one comes before and the other after. Apart from that relation, neither can be established.
2. The problem of successive causality is also the problem of continuity in existence. Although all phenomena are impermanent and ever-changing, there is nothing that is utterly annihilated. There is no individual entity that is eternal and unchanging, yet there are always "streams" of phenomena continuing without interruption. All things transform continuously according to definite principles. The Buddha gave special attention to explaining the continuous stream of life, that is, the phenomena of sentient beings. He taught that the fundamental motive forces of saṃsāric birth and death are ignorance and craving. Sentient beings themselves are combinations of the totality of past experiences and karmic causes. Through present karmic causes, sentient beings proceed toward future stages of life. From the logical point of view, he elucidated the law of heterogeneous causes and heterogeneous results. From the psychological point of view, he expounded the law of homogeneous causes and equal-flow results. From the metaphysical point of view, he presented the law of the Twelvefold Dependent Origination. Although, twenty-five hundred years ago, terminology and modes of expression were still limited, the texts of the Four Āgamas were nevertheless able to expound these subtle teachings.
IV. The Synthetic Meaning of Cause and Effect and the Vision of Interpenetrating Dependent Origination¶
(Ý nghĩa tổng hợp của nhân quả và viễn tượng trùng trùng duyên khởi)
In sum, the Buddhist conception of cause and effect, in its narrow sense, is simply the law of causality (loi de causalité); but in its broader sense, it is not merely a set of causal relations of a purely theoretical nature. The Buddhist conception of cause and effect embraces moral and soteriological relations as well; in breadth it extends throughout the ten directions, and in length it penetrates past, future, and present. The "one" is intimately connected with the "all," and the "all" may be understood through the "one."
An ancient Vietnamese Zen master expressed this principle in two marvelous lines:
"If there is, there is, down to the motes of dust;
If there is no emptiness, then nothing at all is empty."
Translated:
"If there is, there is from the tiniest speck;
If there is not, then this whole world too is not."
(Tác hữu trần sa hữu / Vi không nhất thiết không)
A single particle of dust may be small, yet it exists only through its relation to the whole. The whole may be vast, yet if it loses its relation to that tiny particle of dust, it cannot be established. Thus another Zen master of the Lý dynasty wrote:
"The whole universe rests upon the tip of a hair;
The sun and moon are contained within a mustard seed."
(Heaven and earth drawn into a tiny hair-tip,
Sun and moon lying within a minute mustard seed.)
(Càn khôn tận thị mao đầu thượng / Nhật nguyệt bao hàm giới tử trung)
Greatness and smallness here are no longer greatness and smallness. A mustard seed, though tiny, is established upon its relation to the whole. The entire universe has come together to bring it into being, just as it has come together with the entire universe to bring forth the sun and moon. If it is, then all is; if it is not, then all is not. "Heaven and earth can be contained on the tip of a single hair" is precisely this meaning.
The world, the universe, and the myriad kinds of beings are woven together by endless, interlayered systems of causes and conditions. This is the fundamental and profound insight of Buddhism. Upon this insight are established transcendent systems of doctrine and wondrous methods of practice. Modern science has already moved beyond a simple, one-directional notion of causality and has drawn close to the Buddhist view of interpenetrating dependent origination. We may hope that one day the torch of the teaching of causes and conditions will shine forth in full brilliance, continuing to dispel notions of fatalism, chance, and divine creation, so that humankind may soon come to recognize its path.
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Bibliography¶
Primary Source¶
Thạc-Đức [attr. Thích Nhất Hạnh]. "Vũ-trụ-quan Phật học." Phật Giáo Việt Nam, nos. 17–18 (1957): 7–11. Digitized copy available via Thư Viện Hoa Sen: thuvienhoasen.org/a26248/tap-chi-phat-giao-viet-nam.
Scholarship on Phật Giáo Việt Nam and Thích Nhất Hạnh's Early Writings¶
Lê, Adrienne Minh-Châu. "Toward National Buddhism: Thích Nhất Hạnh on Buddhist Nationalism and Modernity in the Journal Phật Giáo Việt Nam, 1956–1959." Journal of Vietnamese Studies 19, no. 1 (February 2024): 9–48. doi.org/10.1525/jvs.2024.19.1.9.
Lê, Adrienne Minh-Châu. "Engaged Buddhism and Vietnamese Nation-building in the Early Writings of Thích Nhất Hạnh." Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, no. 35 (2023). kyotoreview.org/issue-35/vietnamese-nation-building-early-writings-of-thich-nhat-hanh.
Lê, Adrienne Minh-Châu. "Thich Nhat Hanh: Becoming Thay." Tricycle: The Buddhist Review (Winter 2022). tricycle.org/magazine/thich-nhat-hanh-vietnam.
Biographical and Reference Sources¶
Plum Village. "Thich Nhat Hanh: Extended Biography." Plum Village, 2014. plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/biography. (Lists Thạc Đức among the pen names used by Thích Nhất Hạnh in the 1950s.)
Thư Viện Phật Việt. "Trần Thạc Đức — Phật giáo Việt Nam và hướng đi nhân bản đích thực." thuvienphatviet.com/tran-thac-duc-phat-giao-viet-nam-va-huong-di-nhan-ban-dich-thuc. (Vietnamese-language source discussing Trần Thạc Đức's contributions to the journal.)