Is the study of the Two Truths done to help us in our religious beliefs?

Listening, contemplating and meditating of Buddhism teachings are the key in leading us to the Truth of the Path. Through the three higher trainings emphasized by the Mahayana Vehicle and the Eight Noble Paths by the Hinayana Vehicle, any sentient beings will be able to develop skills in methods and wisdom to deal with their obscurations to the cessation of sufferings. In developing these skills in methods and wisdoms, one may see the importance to study the philosophy behind the why and how the practices can help us to realize the Truth of Cessation. For some Buddhists, they approaches dharma by practicing joy, compassion and ethics motivated by the simple dharma wish to help others and extend this positive energy towards surrounding environment. For others, they require another a more systematic approach to give them a better grasp of the Buddhism theory on a holistic view. For this reason, for these beings with more analytical mind, the alternative way to approach Buddhism is to study the Buddhism philosophy first by interrogating the nature of reality. By reasoning and analyzing the reality, the interwoven of the karma, compassion and ethics will all be straightened up to one goal of attaining nirvana. So, what is real then? Gautama Buddha sees the reality after he woke up from the dream we still dream. What is real to us is the solidity we see, we hear, we touch and yet are those things so real to us not being real at all? Therefore the Buddhist philosophy has spent volumes to clarify the dualistic view of our world since the approach to understand reality requires intellectual analysis. In the Descent into Lanka Sutra, the Buddha says: My teaching has two modes: Advice and Tenets. To Children I give advice, and to Yogis I give tenets. For more matured mind with capacity to analyse the reality, understanding of the Buddhist philosophy will help ones to sharpen their view in analyzing what is real to them while they are still living in their dream. This dualistic view of the same entity was the key of the analysis of the Buddhism philosophy. The conventional world likes a dream we are still living in is not different from the world of Buddha who sees ultimate truth. It is like a coin with two sides we are looking at the same coin but from these two only possible perspectives. The many Buddhism schools have thus put up their tenets in clarifying the so called Two Truths of our world. The two truths are Conventional Truth and Ultimate Truth. Different schools have different approaches in defining and delineating the two truths. However the two truths always constitute a dichotomy such that all phenomena are within these two truths and when one phenomenon is belong to one truth it must be exclusive to another truth. The ultimate truth is the emptiness to realize. The conventional truth will be all phenomena other than emptiness. For the Hinayana vehicle, the teaching is on the selflessness of persons by seeing the emptiness of I from the aggregates. According to the Mahayana vehicle, the realization of the reality will be more profound than the Hinayana vehicle as they teach selflessness of all phenomena including persons. With this extended view on selflessness, the Mahayana practitioners are able to overcome both the obscurations to liberation and ominiscence to attain buddhahood. With our ignorance to attach and avert, and the presence of our karmic imprints, we reify

our conventional world with the strong conviction of the I existence and the external objects self sufficiently existing out there. The Buddhist philosophy of the different schools attempts to eliminate this reification by progressively refuting the externality and drawing us closer into nothingness. Being neither of the two extremes, these schools are like a scale balancing between the externalism and the nihilism or nothingness. With our solid feeling of I and external objects, the view of externalism reify our attachment and aversion to avoid harm on our self interest and thus partiality to our surroundings. On the other hand, if one falls into nihilism thought, it would seem that practitioners are wasting of time and effort since there is no cause and effect to mention of their act to improve ones condition to achieve liberation. In consideration of the various mentality capacity and psychological issues of different sentient beings, the different schools define the selflessness differently and delineate all phenomena between the two truths varyingly. The progressive reduction on reliance of the externality is observed from the two schools of Hinayana Vehicle: Vabhashika then Sautrantika, to the two schools of Mahayana Vehicle: Citamatra then Madhyamaka. For Madhyamaka subschool Prasangika it refutes more subtle reification and comes closer to nihilism. For defining the conventional truths, the four schools adopt different meanings of the Sanskrit word samvrti which could be interpreted as either concealer of truth, interdependent or convention. By using the definition of interdependence on others, Vabhashika asserted that the conventional truth refers to objects building on causes and conditions and thus their changing on a moment by a moment depend on the varying causes and conditions during that moment. The solidity of permanent object projecting out there was thus reduced to something less solid in appearance and replaced by momentarily changing nature. The objects are also not nothingness under the Vabhashika view since they are reducible to the smallest partless particles which are asserted as substantially existed. The ontology of this school helps to re-establish our permanent view of external objects as something less solid but still existed on its own. Based on the definition of convention by imputation, Sautrantika school asserted objects exist only due to imputation by conceptual thought upon some valid base and noted that the imputedly existent do exist conceptually as referents to the imputation to avoid nihilism. This school as compared to Vabhashika noted that not only being molecules of this atomic substantially existed particles, the reference for ultimate is by convention on how the mind perceive the objects directly or conceptually. In relation of external objects to mind i.e epistemology, the philosophy schools have approached differently too. The Sautrantika school has approached this by establishing the direct perception and conceptual consciousness which is later adopted by the Madhyamaka as well. For all objects imputed by conceptual are conventional truth according to the school since these appearing objects are not functioning and the meaning generality image of the objects does not fully reflect to the mind of the specific characteristics of the object engaged in the mind. For Mind-only school or Cittramatra, there are the additional seventh consciousness mind-basis-of-all and eighth consciousness afflictive mind on top of the five senses consciousnesses and mental consciousness as propounded by the other three schools, to describe the carry-on of karmic imprints and the influence of these on

our daily activities. For this school the objects appears to us as cut off from our consciousness apprehending them and this happens due to our mind-basis-of-all mind to perceive the objects in that manner being a separate entity from the consciousness apprehending it. According to this school this is false and concealing the truth. The ultimate truth is thus asserted being the thorough established nature of all phenomena which are empty of the difference of the separate entity between the external objects and the consciousness apprehending them. The school also highlighted the conventional truth of the objects do exist due to their imputation nature by labeling them thus rejecting nihilism. For the highest tenet school, Prasangika Madhyamaka also adopted the definition of concealer truth for the conventional truth. But in such case, the fact is that the ultimate truth that nothing is truly existed is being concealed and this avoids the extremism of externalism. However, all phenomena do exist conventionally and this avoids nihilism. In this school, the two truths exist conventionally and neither exist ultimately. Moreover, the ultimate truth is the lacking ultimate existence and thus knowing this help us in refuting the reification of the world we dream. By understanding the conventional truth we know how the three parties, person, action and results are related and conventionally existent. These schools have attempted to illustrate the two truths for different beings made of different receptiveness. They are not ranked to illustrate their superiority but importantly the proponent of any school is to realize the selflessness taught by the system. By learning through these schools and contemplating their gradual progress by delineating the two truths, this will help the Buddhism practice along the path of meditation. While one is searching the highest view of selflessness one has the capacity to develop, one should also not fall into the brink of nihilism to hold flimsy view on cause and effect. Knowing how the conventional truth exists, it makes one confident in following the dharma teachings and practicing accordingly to generate compassion and avoid the ten non-virtuous. With the understanding of wisdom through realizing emptiness of persons, actions and results, the practicing of generosity, compassion, ethics, patience become perfected and the altruistic mind is developed and stabilised. Thus the understanding of the two truths allows the practitioner to achieve skills of developing wisdom and methods to collect wisdom and merits. With these two collections of wisdom and merits, one will realize the truth body and form body of Buddha.