Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

by Robert Wright

“Buddhist philosophy does not espouse oneness.” And she was basically right. Though you can certainly find respected Buddhist thinkers who will put things roughly the way Weber did, you won’t find this idea of the oneness of everything in the mainstream of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, the philosophy that so emphasizes the idea of emptiness. After all, if the things we see in the world out there are in fact empty of essence, then in a sense they don’t exist—at least, not as things per se. And of course the self, according to Buddhist philosophy, doesn’t exist. So how could everything—a bunch of things “out there” that don’t really, strictly speaking, exist, and a self “in here” that doesn’t really, strictly speaking, exist—all be one? Nothing plus nothing adds up to nothing, not one, right? That’s a simplified, almost cartoonish version of the actual Buddhist argument. But it captures the spirit of the argument and helps explain why orthodox Buddhists would bridle at loose talk of “oneness.” On the other hand, once you go beyond the caricature and look a bit more deeply at the mainstream argument, you start to wonder whether the bridling is really in order. In fact, pondering the students’ reaction to Weber led me to believe that the line between the ideas of emptiness and oneness is pretty fuzzy.