What is History?
History is a way of organizing earlier material in order to understand some sort of development which happened over time. If we look at a quote, “If history obtains, man has attended it,” we may consider history as existing independently – as a thing all by itself – and that man was just a bystander, watching and attending it like a sports event. But history doesn’t exist as “a thing.” It is just a way of organizing and looking at various themes within material over a period of time. In Buddhist terminology this organization of historical material is a “mental construct.”
We can relate this idea of mental construct to the theme of projections. For example, we can ask, “Did the Russian Revolution happen?” Even though the response would be “Yes,” we would still need to ask: Then, what actually did happen at this time? Many people were there and experienced something different within each moment, but did they experience “The Revolution” as if it was an elephant they were all watching? If it wasn’t, then what was the revolution? The revolution was only described afterwards when different historians tried to make sense of the various experiences of many people who were there. These historians then put together the eye-witness accounts in some sort of mental synthesis – an organisation of experiences called “history.” We can also see this type of organisation of Buddhist material which can be presented in various different ways.
If we take the topic of psychology, for example, even though there are numerous schools of psychology, what is the topic actually talking about? We can say that psychology is the vast amount of momentary experiences of a great number of different people. A psychologist then presents these experiences within an organizational scheme, which is explained using a psychological theory. The experiences can be presented within not just one scheme but can be organised according to numerous systems.
If we ask the philosophical question, did anything actually happen previously? The response would be “Of course something happened.” But, was it just a mental construct that puts it together in a synthesis of “history”? This is a significant question because it introduces us to the Buddhist analytical way of looking at things – a way that is important for us to understand.
Tibetan Buddhists study the four schools of Indian Buddhism as a graded course, i.e. one level leads to another, both in terms of our understanding and of progressively deeper insights and a subtler deconstruction of our false view of reality. This is a way of organizing material for the purpose of gaining liberation and enlightenment; the Buddhist aim. If these organizational schemes are merely mental constructs, then they are mentally constructed by someone, or a group of people, for a purpose; like different psychological theories are put together for the purpose of helping patients. We can organize the material of the Buddhist teachings according to a logical development of ideas, whereby we have the beginning of a concept of a certain teaching that is developed and then, again further elaborated or expanded upon – this is what is known as “the history of Buddhism.”
In our Western way of thinking, this idea of how things develop – of what is referred to as “progress” – is something we are very concerned about. It is based on our concept of linear time, something which is culturally specific. Linear time provides us, as Westerners, with useful information on how ideas develop overtime, but for Tibetans and Indians this information is irrelevant. They do not believe in history in terms of linear time. Therefore, can we say that our Western historical analysis is more valid than the Indian/Tibetan one? The Buddha taught all topics simultaneously in numerous realms, therefore the issue of dividing the teachings according to time is fairly irrelevant. Even though the three transmissions within the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma can be divided, the actual dates of these transmissions are insignificant.
What is important is not to adopt an arrogant academic conceptually biased point of view, a view which regards only history as true and that it was people later on who developed all these ideas. This isn’t Buddhism. Authentic Buddhism is only what Buddha taught. Therefore then, is it useful to study or to construct a line of development of ideas, to have an historical perspective? Is it useful for us to take the concept of what a Buddha is over a period of time in order to see the development, or progression, of an idea?
Looking in terms of development or progress is one way of labelling the time sequence, another way is in terms of degeneration. Either way is equally valid because that would be how it makes sense within the context of a certain way of thinking. Or, you could see it as just people making it up, or in order to gain legitimacy – “this is what Buddha really meant” – in terms of either interpretable or definitive.
If we return back to the question as to what is the purpose of a history, of constructing a history of the development of some ideas, we may not have an answer. However, we could say that for our way of thinking, which is very linear, it is useful in that it helps us to make sense of the material within our own conceptual framework. It is important for us not to be judgemental and, from a Buddhist point of view, not to say that to take an historical perspective is far more valid than some of the Buddhist ways of understanding how to organize material.
Here, when we refer to linear time, we are talking about time that has a beginning, either created by a higher being or starting with a Big Bang. This beginning will continue and come to an end, either with the destruction of the universe or the Big Crunch, and then consequently time will end. This is in contrast to the Buddhist point of view whereby there is no beginning and no end. Instead, there will be another Big Bang, another Big Crunch or expansion to nothing – it just goes on and on, in a non-linear way.
The differing views of linear and non-linear underlines one of the benefits of studying Buddhist material, because what it does is to help us identify what are our culturally specific ways of thinking. The word “specific” here is important because it shows that it is only our culture that thinks in this way, yet in fact we are to understand that there are many other ways of looking at the universe and our experience. Often, because we are only familiar with our own viewpoint, we don’t even consider the possibility that there is another way of looking at the universe, let alone that it could be equally valid. Therefore, studying something as different as the Buddhist way of thinking helps us to identify these projections that we have of ways of organizing material. The notions of “one truth,” “progression,” or “degeneration” are simply ways of understanding that are mentally constructed – they are not necessarily universal nor do they exist “out there” as The Truth.
According to the Chittamatra point of view, “it is how it appears to us.” Situations appear to each person in a different way depending on their culture. For example, in family therapy, the manner in which a situation will appear to the mother, to the father or to the children will be different. When we open up our minds to consider that there are other ways of organizing material and understanding it, for various different purposes, then we will have so many other tools that we can use for dealing with our everyday problems. Considering other possibilities shows us that we may have been conditioned by our culture and, in fact, in looking at it in another way will help us find a better solution. Or, we may find it useful to put together different viewpoints in order to come up with yet another mental synthesis.
Our conditioning, which makes us think in a certain way, doesn’t mean that we have to be judgemental about our culture, thinking that ours is superior and others’ inferior or vice versa. We have all grown up in a certain context because nobody exists out of a context. Nor, do we have to view our conditioning as limited because the point is that there are other helpful ways of looking at and understanding different topics.