Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

During his long career as a teacher who answered all kinds of questions put to him from his monastic as well as lay followers, the Buddha is known to have occasionally refused to answer certain questions. One of the best-known examples of the Buddha’s refusal to answer questions is recorded in the Culamalunkya Sutta, in which the Buddha refuses to answer ten questions put to him by the monk Malunkyaputta. Included among these ten questions are such questions as: whether the world is eternal or not eternal, whether the world is finite or infinite, whether the soul is the same as the body or the soul is one thing and the body another.

Why did the Buddha refuse to answer these questions? One reason for the Buddha’s refusal seems to be the speculative nature of these questions to which only speculative answers could be given. But a more important reason is that these questions are irrelevant to what the Buddha considered to be the imminent task for the people to find the solution to the question of suffering that permeates life: “Whether there is the view ‘the world is eternal’ or the view ‘the world is not eternal,’ there is birth, there is aging, there is death, there are sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair, the destruction of which I prescribe here and now.”¹ Using the well-known simile of the man wounded by a poisoned arrow, the Buddha convinces Malunkyaputta that a question such as whether the world is eternal or not eternal “is unbeneficial, does not belong to the fundamentals of the spiritual life, does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana.”² And in the Mahasaropama Sutta, the Buddha employs another well-known simile of the heartwood to teach his monks that “it is this unshakable liberation of mind that is the goal of this spiritual life, its heartwood, and its end.”³

Included among the ten questions asked by Malunkyaputta, in addition to the ones mentioned above, is the question about life after death, which is couched in the form of a question as to what happens to a Tathagata after death. Needless to say, this is another question to which the Buddha refuses to provide an answer for the same reason he gave to other questions. The Buddha’s refusal to answer the question of life after death reminds us of Confucius, another sage in the tradition of Eastern thought, who also refused to answer such a speculative question. When asked by Chi-lu about death, Confucius replies: “You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?”⁴ While Confucius differs from the Buddha in that his primary concern was about the question of establishing social order, it is clear that he, too, refused to answer certain questions as speculative and unbeneficial.

The tradition of Western thought, especially that of science, has not been shy about asking all kinds of questions, some of which would no doubt be labeled as speculative and unbeneficial in the tradition of Eastern thought as represented by the Buddha and Confucius. Take, for example, the question of whether the world is eternal or not eternal, to which the Buddha refused to give an answer. Centuries of passionate endeavors by Western scientists to find an answer to this question have resulted in a remarkable answer known as the big-bang theory, which states that the world, or the universe, began at a finite past with the event called the “big-bang”.

As a scientific theory, it is an idea, or a model, about how the universe began, whose validity is still being debated among cosmologists today. But the problem with an answer such as a big-bang theory is that it raises further questions. Especially troublesome is the question of what the universe was like before the big bang, to which even scientists hesitate to answer. Thus, Stephen Hawking states: “If, as is the case, we know only what has happened since the big bang, we could not determine what happened beforehand. As far as we are concerned, events before the big bang can have no consequences, so they should not form part of a scientific model of the universe.”⁵

It is interesting to note that this statement by the physicist Hawking is almost in agreement with the words of Pope John Paul II: “Science cannot of itself solve this question (concerning the universe’s beginning): there is needed that human knowledge that rises above physics and astrophysics and which is called metaphysics; there is needed above all the knowledge that comes from God’s revelation.”⁶ We should perhaps say that Hawking the physicist is “almost” in agreement with Pope John Paul II because the last part of the Pope’s statement does mention the role of God the creator of the universe as he would as the head of the Catholic Church.

To the extent that there are certain questions to which no satisfactory answers can be given, we are reminded of an answer given by Shylock in Act IV of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice: “I am not bound to please thee with my answer.” Though given in a completely different context of a legal strife, we need to remind ourselves that sometimes no answer is the best answer, whether the question concerns mundane affairs or extramundane affairs. The refusal to answer certain questions does not deny the importance of seeking knowledge of the world around us, whether by direct experience or by scientific method. What is being denied is the possibility of finding satisfactory—and beneficial—answers to all the questions about ourselves and the universe, for the very act of asking questions is meaningful only in the context of cosmic evolution which has given us life on a tiny speck in the universe called Earth.

1. Bhikkhu Boddhi, In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005, p.232.
2. Ibid., p.233.
3. Ibid., p.237.
4. Confucius, The Analects, London: Penguin Books, 1979, XI.12.
5. Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, New York: Bantam Books, 1988, p.46.
6. Pope John Paul II, “Cosmology and Fundamental Physics”, October 1981.

Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

It was October 1970 when the Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, visiting Washington for a summit meeting with the U.S. President, uttered what he intended to be diplomatic words: “I will do the best I can.” The words were in response to the request from President Richard Nixon to do something about the trade imbalance between the two countries as low cost textile products from Japan were flooding the U.S. markets. Needless to say, President Nixon was acting on behalf of the U.S. textile industry, whose viability was threatened by a rising economic power from Asia.

Prime Minister Sato’s original words in Japanese were: “zensho simasu (善処します)”, which the interpreter translated into: “I will do the best I can.” There was nothing wrong with the translation, except that the interpreter failed to convey, intentionally or unintentionally, that Prime Minister Sato was politely saying, “Let’s see what can be done,” without actually mentioning who would be taking what action. The Japanese would know that these words, when spoken by a politician, actually mean “doing nothing”. In fact, the lack of action on the part of Prime Minister Sato to force the Japanese textile industry to exercise export restraint went on to aggravate the trade friction between the two countries.

This episode illustrates the importance of paying attention to the cultural context behind the use of words. While Prime Minister Sato was using the words, “I will do the best I can,” in the context of Japanese culture in which such ambiguous expressions abound, President Nixon was interpreting the same words in the context of American culture, in which they would mean: “I will personally see to it that something is done to remedy the situation.” The English translation, “I will do the best I can,” leaves no doubt who will do the best. On the other hand, the original Japanese expression leaves who will do the best ambiguous as the personal pronoun “I” is omitted.

Omitting personal pronouns is a rule in the Japanese language, not an exception limited to this episode. The issue, here, is not the right way of speaking but the way the Japanese actually speak in daily conversations, which Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), a Swiss linguist who is widely recognized for his pioneering work in modern linguistics, called the parole, as opposed to the langue, aspect of the Japanese language. When you ask your friend, “Do you like apples?” it is clear to whom the question is addressed. Or is it? When a Japanese asks this question, he or she will typically omit the personal pronoun “you” and simply ask, “Like apples?” And the person to whom this question is put will usually answer, “Like apples,” omitting the personal pronoun “I”.

It goes without saying that, when personal pronouns are omitted, who is asking the question to whom becomes ambiguous. When you are proposing that someone marry you, it is vitally important to make clear who is proposing to whom. In English, there is no ambiguity as to who is proposing to whom, for the question is expressed as: “Will you marry me?” But in Japanese, the same question gets condensed into a single word: “Marry?”

There is thus an inherent ambiguity about persons behind actions in the parole aspect of the Japanese language. In contrast, it is almost imperative in the English language to make explicit persons behind actions. A typical sentence in English has a “subject-verb-object” structure. While this structure makes explicit who does what, it can create other problems, as David Bohm (1917-1992), a theoretical physicist, points out: “This (the subject-verb-object) is a pervasive structure, leading in the whole of life to a function of thought tending to divide things into separate entities, such entities being conceived of as essentially fixed and static in their nature.”¹ In the case of a marriage proposal, “Will you marry me?” the person who is asking the question and the person to whom the question is put are clearly separated. In this case, the fixed and static nature of things in a sentence is essential, for you would expect a specific person, not just anyone, to return your question with an answer: “Yes, I will marry you.”

The “subject-verb-object” structure in English reflects the underlying culture of English-speaking societies, where a person is regarded as having a distinct self, separate from others. This is in sharp contrast to the Buddhist conception of self, which is regarded as arising out of cooperation of five elements called panc upadanakkhadha, or the “five aggregates”: rupa (form), sanna (perception), vedana (feeling), sankhara (volitional formations), and vinnana (consciousness). The ordinary person, whom the Buddha calls assutava puthujjana, or “the uninstructed worldling”, views self as arising out of these five aggregates: “Here, monk, the uninstructed worldling … regards form as self, or self as possessing form, or form as in self, or self as in form. He regards feeling as self … perception as self … volitional formations as self, or self as possessing consciousness, or consciousness as in self, or self as in consciousness.”² But the Buddha reminds us that nothing that comprises the five aggregates is “self”: “Monks, form is nonself … Feeling is nonself …Perception is nonself … Volitional formations is nonself … Consciousness is nonself.”³

This is the Buddhist idea of anatta, or “non-self”, namely, the idea that self is an illusion. We humans are, like other things that exist in the manifest world of conventional reality, composite entities consisting of five factors, which together define what we think we are. But there is nothing behind any one of these five factors, as each factor is empty of a separate self. This is not to deny that there are actions such as speaking, walking, and meditating. What is denied is the existence of a self that controls each of these actions. As the Buddha reminds Moliyaphagguna in response to his questions about who is behind actions with respect to the four kinds of nutriment, “there are actions, but no actors.”⁴

In omitting personal pronouns, the Japanese seem to be following this Buddhist dictum that “there are actions, but no actors.” But are they? Do they omit personal pronouns in their conversations because they are following the Buddha’s teaching about “non-self”? To be sure, there are some Japanese who omit personal pronouns out of their homage to the Buddha’s teaching. But for most Japanese, omitting personal pronouns is a way of conveying to others that they are not self-centered individuals. In a society where “a nail that sticks out gets banged down,” omitting personal pronouns is one way in which the people make sure that they do not “stick out”.

Today, the traditional Japanese value of humbleness and modesty is being undermined by the influx of foreign cultures into Japan with globalization. With the spread of English as the language of global business, the Japanese, are beginning to adopt the custom of making explicit personal pronouns in their conversations. The prolifertion of English in business and other areas of social life may lead to the erosion of the Japanese custom of omitting personal pronouns. That erosion, in turn, may lead to the erosion of the Buddhist idea of non-self among the Japanese as they live in a country where exposure to the Buddha’s teachings is limited among small numbers of practitioners. Indeed, English, with its pervasive “subject-verb-object” structure which divides things into separate entities, may also lead to the erosion of another important idea in Buddhist thought, namely, paticca samuppada, or the idea of “interconnectedness of all things in the universe”.

1. Bohn, David, Wholeness and The Implicate Order, New York: Routledge, 2002, Chapter 2.
2. Bhikkhu Bodhi, In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005, p. 340.
3. Ibid. p. 341.
4. Nidanasamyutta, Samyutta Nikaya Part II. Chapter I.12.