In the newest video [you can watch this video for FREE] with Ken and Traleg Rinpoche on Integral Spiritual Center Ken starts his usual wrap about Nagarjuna’s “Middle Way” philosophy being a criticism of Theravada Buddhism. Although I think there’s some truth to his argument, the main problem I see with it, is the same problem i see from many Tibetan influenced thinkers, and that is conflating “Hinayana” Buddhism with “Theravada” Buddhism. Hinayana, or ‘lesser vehicle,’ was a term given to one portion of the foundational texts that the Tibetans use, which actually don’t even come from the Theravada school! They come from an another contending, early school, called the Sarvastivada, which consequently died out. So when you start conflating Hinayana and Theravada you are collapsing two different schools. Ok, but this isn’t really what Ken does in this video (although he does it all the time in his writing), but this “idea” that he adopted from Tibetan Buddhism carries with him in his criticism of the Theravada.
He is basically arguing that Nagarjuna was criticizing the Theravada school of Buddhism. BUT, if we look at the actual history of these schools, one will quickly see that Nagarjuna was said to have lived from 150 – 250 CE, and that the Theravada school didn’t even begin until 246CE after the Third Buddhist Council. So was Nagarjuna criticizing, in all his writing which predated 246CE, a school that hadn’t even come into being yet??? Obviously not. Instead he was criticizing different schools or different views, which although were considered early schools of Buddhism, and therefore probably had some doctrinal similarities with the later Theravada school, were still different schools. Not to mention that even if Nagarjuna was criticizing Theravada in particular (which he wasn’t), then we have to recognize that the Theravada school itself has been morphing, changing, & evolving over the past 1750 years since its conception.
So what seems more likely, is that Ken is taking his understanding of Theravada, and applying Nagarjuna’s earlier criticisms to that. Let’s remember that the major commentator for the Theravada tradition, Buddhaghosa in his Visuddhimagga, didn’t come until nearly 300 years after Nagarjuna, so clearly that was a later development (on a historical scale).
One can still argue that Nagarjuna had a deeper understanding than Buddhaghosa, and while I think his interpretive framework might have been novel in refreshing ways (particularly the two truths doctrine) I don’t think that means his realization was actually fundamentally different. My understanding, is that the realization of the Arhant is the non-dual realization.
