Was Buddhism ever a "system"?

[BethL]

@Mkoll

I don’t think so. Good results can be obtained despite these kinds of uncertainties. They don’t need to be solved to make progress. Indeed, what answer could possibly satisfy all one’s doubts?

Well, if we restrict ourselves to an individual’s progress on the path, I can see where this becomes speculation that generates distracting cognitive content.

But if we open up the can of worms “why good things happen to bad people” then I feel it’s fair – necessary, even – to spend time and energy on it.

@Sphairos

Regarding Buddhism: if the Buddha gave Dhamma which is perfect at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end – perhaps it was thought of as something of a perfectly arranged system?

Or, what about a system that perfectly explains itself? Which I feel it does.

@cdpatton

If we are honest about it, China experienced the Renaissance before Europe during that time, but then it was interrupted by the Mongol invasion and occupation. They were becoming sophisticated in terms of their academy, engineering, and natural sciences as well.

I relate this to my proposal above:

@BethL

One could argue that mass colonization that began evolving with the shipping & trade industry, along with adoption of a global currency standard (silver), stimulated systems thinking with a metaphysical bend. With the highly materialistic machine set in motion, was there a more pressing need for philosophers and thinkers to reconcile metaphysics with materialism?

H. Tanner in China: A History (Volume I) says this:

The three and a half centuries which the Liao, Xi Xia, Jin, and Song co-existed and competed with one another saw tremendous economic and social changes, ways of thought, and new techniques of rulership and statecraft…The highly commercialized Song economy, the rise of Chinese shipbuilding and navigation, tea-drinking, the intellectual movement that we call ‘Neo-Confucianism,’ landscape paintings, and poetry…

Silver isn’t mentioned as a standard currency because it competed with things like bushels of tea. In any case, it would appear the Neo-Confucian development of the “Great Ultimate” is an attempt to reconcile metaphysics with growing materialist culture. Obviously it’s a raw comparison but I’ll stand by it for now .

Lastly, I was reminded of this particular essay by Bhante Sujato:

What does ñāya mean, exactly?

Warning! This essay was originally quite different, I ended up rejecting my initial proposal, the following has been completely revised. Additional warning in 2023, I have changed again from “method” to “system”. The Pali word ñāya is a bit tricky to translate. It’s not all that common, but it’s used in a few significant passages, so clearly it is a meaningful doctrinal term. It’s from ni + i so there’s a sense of “going, proceeding” to it. It’s used much more commonly in later texts in the…

As a pāli student, several years ago this piqued my interest because of Bhante’s translation choice in AN 2.40, for example:

@sujato

Gihī vā, bhikkhave, pabbajito vā micchāpaṭipanno micchāpaṭipattādhikaraṇahetu na ārādhako hoti ñāyaṃ dhammaṃ kusalaṃ.
Sujato: Because of wrong practice, neither laypeople nor renunciants complete the system of the wholesome teaching.
Bodhi: Whether it is a layperson or one gone forth who is practicing wrongly, because of wrong practice, they do not attain the true way, the Dhamma that is wholesome.

and, e.g., AN 3.74:

@sujato

sattānaṃ visuddhiyā soka­pari­devā­naṃ samatikkamāya duk­kha­do­manas­sā­naṃ atthaṅgamāya ñāyassa adhigamāya nibbānassa sacchikiriyāya
Sujato: in order to purify sentient beings, to get past sorrow and crying, to make an end of pain and sadness, to comprehend the system, and to realize extinguishment.
Bodhi: for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the passing away of pain and dejection, for the achievement of the method, for the realization of nibbāna

As well as in MN 10:

Mendicants, the four kinds of mindfulness meditation are the path to convergence. They are in order to purify sentient beings, to get past sorrow and crying, to make an end of pain and sadness, to discover the system, and to realize extinguishment.

In Bhante’s essay, he speaks at length about the translation choice in MN 10.

@sujato

Here the general sense of “goodness, right method” seems inadequate. The only sense that seems fitting is that of dependent origination, as the cessation sequence is, in fact, nibbana. Thus the whole round of origination and cessation, and the realization of that, can stand for the completion of the noble path and the realization of nibbana.

There is a system and it is DO. Everything in the path depends on it (pun not intended). If we pull back and examine its logic, it does solve “why good things happen to bad people” when held as a definition of kammic cycles – held with great care, reverence, and tenderness, I would add.

Still, it is not “systems thinking” the way I interpret what began evolving during the Chinese and European renaissance.