Two truths doctrine

The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths (Sanskrit: dvasatya, Wylie: bden pa gnyis) differentiates between two levels of satya (Sanskrit; Pāli: sacca; meaning "truth" or "reality") in the teaching of Śākyamuni Buddha: the "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth, and the "absolute" or "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth.^[1]^[2]

The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was the 3rd-century Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna.^[1] For Nāgārjuna, the two truths are epistemological truths.^[2] The phenomenal world is accorded a provisional existence.^[2] The character of the phenomenal world is declared to be neither real nor unreal, but logically indeterminable.^[2] Ultimately, all phenomena are empty (śūnyatā) of an inherent self or essence due to the non-existence of the self (anātman),^[3] but temporarily exist depending on other phenomena (pratītya-samutpāda).^[1]^[2]

In Chinese Buddhism, the Mādhyamaka thought is accepted, and the two truths doctrine is understood as referring to two ontological truths. Reality exists of two levels, a relative level and an absolute level.^[4] Based on their understanding of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Chinese Buddhist monks and philosophers supposed that the teaching of the Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) was, as stated by that Sūtra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above emptiness (śūnyatā) and the two truths.^[5]

The doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) is an attempt to show that it is neither proper nor strictly justifiable to regard any metaphysical system as absolutely valid. The two truths doctrine doesn't lead to the extreme philosophical views of eternalism (or absolutism) and annihilationism (or nihilism), but strikes a middle course (madhyamāpratipada) between them.^[1]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Matilal 2002, pp. 203–208.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Thakchoe, Sonam (Summer 2022). "The Theory of Two Truths in Tibet". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 643092515. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
^ Siderits, Mark (Spring 2015). "Buddha: Non-Self". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 643092515. Archived from the original on 27 April 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023. The Buddha's "middle path" strategy can be seen as one of first arguing that there is nothing that the word "I" genuinely denotes, and then explaining that our erroneous sense of an "I" stems from our employment of the useful fiction represented by the concept of the person. While the second part of this strategy only receives its full articulation in the later development of the theory of two truths, the first part can be found in the Buddha's own teachings, in the form of several philosophical arguments for non-self. Best known among these is the argument from impermanence (S III.66–8) [...].
It is the fact that this argument does not contain a premise explicitly asserting that the five skandhas (classes of psychophysical element) are exhaustive of the constituents of persons, plus the fact that these are all said to be empirically observable, that leads some to claim that the Buddha did not intend to deny the existence of a self tout court. There is, however, evidence that the Buddha was generally hostile toward attempts to establish the existence of unobservable entities. In the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta (D I.178–203), for instance, the Buddha compares someone who posits an unseen seer in order to explain our introspective awareness of cognitions, to a man who has conceived a longing for the most beautiful woman in the world based solely on the thought that such a woman must surely exist. And in the Tevijja Sutta (D I.235–52), the Buddha rejects the claim of certain Brahmins to know the path to oneness with Brahman, on the grounds that no one has actually observed this Brahman. This makes more plausible the assumption that the argument has as an implicit premise the claim that there is no more to the person than the five skandhas.
^ Lai 2003, p. 11.
^ Lai 2003.

[FOOTNOTEMatilal2002203–208-1] Matilal 2002, pp. 203–208.

[Stanford_2022-2] Thakchoe, Sonam (Summer 2022). "The Theory of Two Truths in Tibet". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 643092515. Archived from the original on 28 May 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2022.

[Siderits_2015-3] Siderits, Mark (Spring 2015). "Buddha: Non-Self". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 643092515. Archived from the original on 27 April 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023. The Buddha's "middle path" strategy can be seen as one of first arguing that there is nothing that the word "I" genuinely denotes, and then explaining that our erroneous sense of an "I" stems from our employment of the useful fiction represented by the concept of the person. While the second part of this strategy only receives its full articulation in the later development of the theory of two truths, the first part can be found in the Buddha's own teachings, in the form of several philosophical arguments for non-self. Best known among these is the argument from impermanence (S III.66–8) [...].
It is the fact that this argument does not contain a premise explicitly asserting that the five skandhas (classes of psychophysical element) are exhaustive of the constituents of persons, plus the fact that these are all said to be empirically observable, that leads some to claim that the Buddha did not intend to deny the existence of a self tout court. There is, however, evidence that the Buddha was generally hostile toward attempts to establish the existence of unobservable entities. In the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta (D I.178–203), for instance, the Buddha compares someone who posits an unseen seer in order to explain our introspective awareness of cognitions, to a man who has conceived a longing for the most beautiful woman in the world based solely on the thought that such a woman must surely exist. And in the Tevijja Sutta (D I.235–52), the Buddha rejects the claim of certain Brahmins to know the path to oneness with Brahman, on the grounds that no one has actually observed this Brahman. This makes more plausible the assumption that the argument has as an implicit premise the claim that there is no more to the person than the five skandhas.

[FOOTNOTELai200311-4] Lai 2003, p. 11.

[FOOTNOTELai2003-5] Lai 2003.

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Two truths doctrine

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