A Buddhist Cosmological View — Vũ-trụ-quan Phật học (TNH-voice)¶
TNH-voice prompt 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, part of the tnh-scholar suite, using the
translate_journal_section_tnh_voice_en prompt against cleaned OCR text from scanned
journal pages. It is offered as a research baseline and working draft, not a final 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 of the most important concerns in the world of Indian thought. The Brahmajāla Sutta records as many as sixty-two different explanations offered by the philosophical schools of that age. Taken together, we can see three main tendencies:
1. The tendency of Fatalism (Pubba-kata-hetu)
The schools belonging to this tendency held that everything in the natural world and the human world is arranged by predestination. All things proceed according to pre-existing natural laws. The value of human effort and material means is not recognized here.
2. The tendency of Theism, or Divine Will (Issara-nimmāna-hetu)
The schools belonging to this tendency maintained that all things exist through the will of a divine being. This divine being is Brahmā, and the center of the schools in this tendency is Brahmanism.
3. The tendency of Chance, or Causelessness (Ahetu-apaccaya)
The schools belonging to this tendency did not accept the principle of cause and effect. All phenomena arise and exist by chance, without following any law or principle at all.
The first and second tendencies place all responsibility in the hands of a supernatural power. Personal responsibility does not become a real question here; misfortune and blessing alike are things that human beings cannot determine. Human actions, whether wholesome or unwholesome, are not seen as the motive force behind success or failure, flourishing or decline.
The third tendency also cannot establish any foundation for personal moral responsibility. If everything is merely 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. Because of that, human beings cannot gradually move toward truth, beauty, and goodness. On the contrary, they can very easily slide down into wrongdoing and dissipation.
From the standpoint of reasoning, the doctrines belonging to these tendencies contain many shortcomings. From the standpoint of human life, the consequences they bring are dark and discouraging. None of them can give a human being true peace on which to establish one's life, nor do they affirm the necessary capacities already present within the human person.
The Buddha's position was to illuminate the principle of the universe in order to lay the foundation for a way of human living. That principle had to accord with the truth of the countless phenomena, and that way of life had to lead the human being to the fulfillment of moral and religious value. The Buddha's purpose in teaching the Dīrgha Āgama was not to attack the theoretical systems of others, but only to reject mistaken philosophical views that could obstruct the realization of morality and liberation in human life.
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 samuppada). All phenomena rely on one another in order to come into being. All are intimately connected with one another. Without that connection, not a single thing could be established. That connection is precisely what is called cause and condition. In the scriptures, the terms CAUSE (hetu), CONDITION (paccaya), CONDITIONING FACTOR (nidana), and ARISING (samudaya) are all different names pointing to that same relation. The Buddha defined conditionality in this way:
"If this is, that is; if this arises, that arises; if this is not, that is not; if this ceases, that ceases."
"To say, 'If this is, that is; if this is not, that is not,' is to describe the relation among things existing at the same time. To say, 'If this arises, that arises; if this ceases, that ceases,' is to describe the relation among things existing at different times. All dharmas arise, cease, and exist within this very close network of mutual relation; no dharma (phenomenon) can exist independently or absolutely. When cause comes first and effect follows later, this is called temporally successive cause and effect. When cause and effect are simultaneous, this is called simultaneous cause and effect. One cause may bring about different effects according to the accompanying conditions. Therefore, there can be no absolute cause, and there can be no absolute effect."
The world is woven out of systems of simultaneous conditionality, viewed from the standpoint of space, and systems of temporally successive conditionality, viewed from the standpoint of time. This is the Buddhist understanding of causation. In the sutras and treatises, the term conditioned dharmas (samkhata dhamma) refers precisely to the phenomena of this world of conditionality. All things are impermanent and changing, and this too is because of conditional relation; for in a world of conditionality, there cannot be phenomena that are permanent and eternal. It is on the basis of this understanding of dependent arising that Buddhism rejects the notion of a world created by a self-existent Supreme God. This is something we cannot fail to recognize.
According to the teaching of the Avatamsaka School, the whole universe is an endlessly interpenetrating system of dependent arising. In this way, Avatamsaka doctrine is established upon the causal vision already present in the Agamas. The Abhidharma works of Southern Buddhism also classified conditions in order to observe and understand them, and this was indeed one of the principal tasks of the Theravada scholastics. (The Mahapakarana distinguishes twenty-four conditions; volume 25 of the Sariputra Abhidharma Treatise distinguishes ten conditions; the Sarvastivada school upholds four conditions.)
Here, we will only briefly examine two kinds: temporally successive cause and effect, and simultaneous cause and effect.
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 question of simultaneous causality is also the question of the subjective and the objective.
The Buddha taught that the world is the meeting between subjective awareness and objective phenomena. Apart from this, there is nothing that can be called the world:
"Bhikkhus, I wish to teach you the meaning of 'all dharmas.' Listen carefully.
Bhikkhus, what is called '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 tactile objects, and the mind in relation to mental objects. Bhikkhus, this is called 'all dharmas.'" (Samyutta)
Thus the world is established upon the relation of cognition between the six sense faculties and the six sense objects. Outside the six faculties and the six objects, everything is without meaning 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 subject and object is removed, the world cannot be established. Everything is founded upon that relation, just as two reeds stand only by leaning against each other:
"Friends, just as two bundles of reeds, tied together and leaning upon each other, are able to stand, so too, with Name-and-Form as condition, Consciousness is; with Consciousness as condition, Name-and-Form is... Of those two bundles of reeds, if one is taken away, the other falls; if the other is taken away, this one falls. In the same way, 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 and the psychological organization of sentient beings, serving as the object for "Consciousness," that is, the subjective aspect of cognition. But Name-and-Form are not things existing separately outside Consciousness. The two depend on one another in order to be established. Between them there is a subtle relation: it is not that one comes first and the other later. Apart from that relation, neither can be established.
2. The question of successive causality is also the question of continuity in existence. All phenomena are impermanent and ever changing, yet there is nothing that is utterly cut off and 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 particular attention to explaining the continuity of the stream of life, that is, the phenomena of sentient beings. He taught that the fundamental driving forces of saṃsāric birth and death are ignorance and craving. Sentient beings themselves are the formations of the whole body of past experience and past karmic causes. Through present karmic causes, sentient beings move toward future phases of life. From the standpoint of logic, he illuminated the law of heterogeneous causes and heterogeneous fruits. From the standpoint of psychology, he explained the law of homogeneous causes and equal-flow fruits. From the standpoint of metaphysics, he set forth the law of the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination. Although twenty-five centuries ago terminology and modes of expression were still limited, the texts of the Four Āgamas were already able to express these subtle teachings.
IV. The Inclusive Meaning of Causality and the Vision of Interdependent Co-Arising¶
(Ý nghĩa tổng hợp của nhân quả và viễn tượng trùng trùng duyên khởi)
In sum, the Buddhist understanding of cause and effect, in its narrow sense, is simply the law of causality. But in its broader sense, it is not merely a set of causal relations of a purely theoretical kind. The Buddhist view of causality also embraces ethical and liberating relationships; its breadth extends throughout the ten directions, and its length penetrates the past, the future, and the present. The "one" is intimately related to the "all," and the "all" can be understood through the "one."
An ancient Vietnamese Zen master expressed this principle in two marvelous lines:
"If there is being, there is being from the tiniest mote;
If there is non-being, then this whole world is also not."
(Tác hữu trần sa hữu / Vi không nhất thiết không)
A grain of dust may be small, yet it exists through its relation with the whole. The whole may be vast, yet if it loses its relation with a tiny grain of dust, it cannot be established. Therefore another Zen master of the Lý dynasty said:
"Heaven and earth are gathered on the tip of a hair;
The sun and moon are contained in a mustard seed."
(Càn khôn tận thị mao đầu thượng / Nhật nguyệt bao hàm giới tử trung)
Here, great and small are no longer merely great and small. A mustard seed may be tiny, yet it has been formed through its relation with 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 the moon. If it is there, then all is there; if it is not there, then all is not. "Heaven and earth can lie upon the tip of a single hair" is precisely this meaning.
The world, the universe, and the myriad beings are woven together by endless systems of interdependent causes and conditions. This is a fundamental and profound insight of Buddhism. Upon this insight are established transcendent systems of teaching and wondrous methods of practice. Modern science has already gone beyond a simple, one-directional notion of causality and has come close to the Buddhist vision of interdependent co-arising in its infinite interweaving. We may hope that one day the torch of the teaching of causes and conditions will shine forth in full, continuing to dispel notions of fatalism, chance, and divine creation, so that humankind may soon come to recognize its path.
Pipeline provenance: translated by tnh-gen using prompt
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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.)