On Apr 23, 8:29 am, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> Awaken21 wrote:
> > Actually Buddhist morality is a personal affair directed inward, to
> > project it on to another person or group of people would be judgment,
> > which is also best avoided.
>
> Actually, if I get it aright, all Buddhist
> teachings are merely a personal affair
> directed inward, to be applied to oneself
> alone, for one's internal awakening, and not
> to be applied to the outside world as such.
>
> Granted, we are humans, and share some
> commonalities with other humans, with
> animals, and with nature out there. But
> Buddhist teachings deal only with our
> internal states, and aim only at purely
> subjective, strictly sentimental states that
> only we experience, even if others can
> guess them through what transpires from
> us to the outside world, as in our
> behaviour. Whether we like it or not, we
> ooze ourselves out at all time, from all
> over.
>
> A few considerations can help in looking
> at the situation.
>
> Firstly, the awakened state is outside of
> thought and language, and to talk about it
> requires thought and language, which
> irremediably prostitutes it beyond
> recognition. And it is shorn of attachment,
> therefore those who are qualified to talk
> about it, namely the awakeneds (among
> whom I do not count myself), if they opt
> to talk about it (which they may well opt
> not to), talk about it in such a way as to
> point to the absence of attachment, and
> one way of doing so is to negate what
> they say immediately after saying it,
> especially seeing that what they say
> misses the target anyway, not in degree
> but in kind. And therefore what they say
> is self-contradictory, and everybody
> knows that in a self-contradictory system
> anything can be said. That part is the
> core of the mind**** in Buddhism and
> Daoism, by which anything can be said
> and called true Buddhism and Daoism,
> which is something that Japanese Zen
> masters who were nationalist jingoists in
> WW II knew well and exploited all the
> way to justify and validate mass murder
> and other kinds of unspeakable war
> crimes.
>
> Secondly, the awakened state is purely
> subjective, strictly sentimental, has no
> content specific to itself (like the beatific
> vision in theistic religions) and there is
> nothing to pin it down to. If there was
> something that it can be tied down to, it
> would be bondage and not freedom. But
> to charge right in and talk about such a
> purely subjective, strictly sentimental
> state can be quite disorienting. People
> communicate by what is common, and
> such a state is outside of thought and
> language, therefore is not common to
> them and is very hard to communicate
> about unless one resorts to lots of
> roundabouts, like metaphors, metonyms,
> and various contradictions and inanities
> that are aimed at defeating themselves
> (they are not aimed at some truth or
> reality existing from its own side but only
> at breaking the hold of language and
> thought). Language and thought work by
> chunking and bagging, and the only way to
> communicate about such a state is to use
> language and thought to break themselves
> and point to what is outside of them. It is
> to use falsity to teach truth.
>
> Thirdly, given that people understand by
> what is common to them, such a purely
> subjective, strictly sentimental state can
> be broached obliquely, by way of what
> is not it, namely the objective world, and
> the objective world as chunked and
> bagged by language and thought, as it is
> what people find common to them.
> Therefore the awakeneds fall back on the
> conventional world as interpreted by
> conventional boxes, namely language and
> thought, to point to what is outside of
> them and free of them. Thus instead of
> saying that attachment should be dropped
> (which is a purely subjective, strictly
> sentimental approach), they have to
> modulate their message by way of the
> world and say that things are impermanent
> and should not be attached to, because
> attaching to them leads to suffering.
> Strictly speaking, it is impossible to know
> for sure that in the whole universe all things
> are impermanent. But such a tactic is
> resorted to to help people release
> attachment and end their suffering. Instead
> of saying that to build up a self leads to
> suffering (which is a purely subjective,
> strictly sentimental approach), the
> awakeneds have to say that things lack self,
> essence and substance, and attaching to
> them leads to suffering. Strictly speaking, it
> is impossible to know for sure that in the
> whole universe all things lack self, essence
> and substance. But such a tactic is
> resorted to to help people release
> attachment and end their suffering.
>
> It can be argued that in some parts of the
> universe there could be things that are
> permanent and have self, essence and
> substance, but that for us to attach to
> them would still lead to suffering (and they
> can be right in our region, though our
> limited perception misses them entirely, or
> they can get into our perception but our
> limited mindset does not allow for them).
> Again such an approach would be purely
> subjective, strictly sentimental and would
> be hard to understand to people who only
> think by way of the objective world.
>
> The detour by way of the world still comes
> with automatic negation of what has just
> been said (that part is not bypassable in
> the teaching of the awakeneds), and this
> automatic negation lends itself to the
> negation of self, essence and substance, in
> things and not just in us.
>
> Returning to the contradiction that the lack
> of self, essence and substance leads to,
> this weakness has been exploited by the
> opponents of Buddhism, especially the
> opponents of the Middlist school
> (Madhyamaka), reputedly founded by
> Nagarjuna. This school teaches the
> absence of esence (a-svabhava) in all
> things, us included. Its opponents say that
> if all things lack self, essence and substance,
> there should be total randomness. Anything
> can become anything whatsoever. Now we
> observe regularities and expectabilities,
> inside and outside us, and not total
> randomness. The regularities and
> expectabilities are not total, but they are
> there. They bespeak of some constancy.
> The issue is how to interpret such
> constancy, be it relative and not absolute.
> What we think and say does refer to
> something with some pattern of regularity
> and expectability, to some degree or other.
> So whether there is self, essence and
> substance or not, we observe some
> modi*** of regularities and expectabilities.
> It is not the regularities and expectabilities
> themselves that cause suffering, for if they
> did, then suffering would be inevitable. It is
> our investing them with self, essence and
> substance that causes suffering (the
> "self-stuff invested by us" of the real
> DharmaTroll), and it is our abstaining from
> doing so that frees us from suffering. It is
> our agglutinating them and congealing them
> into certainties and fixities that do us in.
> Again the cause of suffering is purely
> subjective, strictly sentimental, so is the
> solution to suffering, and so is the state
> that it leads to, Nirvana (and, by the way,
> so is faring-on, Samsara). The detour by
> way of the objective world is mere
> smokescreen, to protect the innocent.
>
> Suffering and the ending of suffering have
> scarcely anything to do with the world. We
> cannot change the world but can only
> change ourselves. It is not the matter (of the
> world) that matters in suffering and the
> ending of suffering, it is only the manner in
> which we deal with it. The objective world,
> whether there is or not any permanent thing
> in it, whether or not anything in it has self,
> essence and substance, is so to speak
> neutral with regard to suffering and the
> ending of suffering. It is agnostic with
> regard to suffering and the ending of
> suffering. It doesn't know suffering and the
> ending of suffering and doesn't allocate
> between them. It merely offers a place for
> us to perpetrate suffering on ourselves, or
> not. Suffering and the ending of suffering
> are what we do to ourselves, and the world
> is a mere bystander. There is nothing
> objective that forces us to cause suffering
> to ourselves and inflict suffering on
> ourselves. Again, if there was something
> objective that forced us to cause suffering
> to ourselves and inflict suffering on
> ourselves, we should be stuck. It is only our
> choice, one way or the other. It is up to us.
> That is our margin of freedom. And it is as
> big as the universe. Nothing limits it, other
> than us.
>
> Tang Huyen
Before get into the goal of buddhism, a more general question is
religion. What is the commonality among all relgions? What is
underlying all suffering?
In the wewt, power is the root of all evil. Money is economic power.
The common phrase in the west is Lord Aton's "Power tends to corrupt;
absolute power corrupt absolutely." And of course, the westtern
conception is wrong. The Chinese or eastern approach is
"relation****p." Combing east and west, the underlying cause of all
surffering is "power relation****p."
First, "power relation****p" is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Every
relation****p we have is a power relation****p in which we coerce or we
are coerced. Interpersonally, intrapersonally and with nature.
Sceond, "power relation****p" is what we learnt from the beginning. It
does not take long for a baby to discover that everytime she cries,
her mom will pick her up or feed her or otherwise attending to her
needs.
Thrid, "power relation****p" brings suffering because we are often
coerced to do something that we don't want to do. Of course, we learn
to turn the table around. For example, fire is to be feared until we
learnt to control fire. The ability to use fire then because a
hallmark of humanness. However, there are always more things/desires
that can coerce us.
Buddhism is an attempt to escape from this ubiquitous "power
relatio****p," especially the intra-personal relation****p because the
self and his desires. Detachment means not to be coerced by one's
desires or one's vision of a certain tuture and its associated
suffering. Awakening in this sense means one is with eternity without
suffering.
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