Sunday, March 22, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
talk.religion.buddhism
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Texts
A Gathering of Voices on No-Self — Buddhist and Psychological PerspectivesA curated anthology of newsgroup discussions on Buddhist anātman, compiled by Evelyn Ruut; includes contributions from Richard Hayes (Mubul), Tang Huyen, Robert Epstein, Mark Epstein, and Evelyn herself.All Support Is Unsupported — On the Heart Sutra's Wit and the Unsupported MindTang Huyen unpacks the pivot-word 'relying on' in the Heart Sutra — and the vast tradition of the unsupported mind behind it.Attachment is the Biggest Problem on Earth — Lama YesheA complete teaching by Lama Yeshe on attachment as the root of all suffering, shared on talk.religion.buddhism in 2004 by Evelyn Ruut from an issue of Mandala Magazine. Covers the evolution of ego into attachment, the kindness of other beings, the wheel of life, and the path of wisdom and method.Einstein on Religion and Science — A CompilationEvelyn Ruut's 2006 compilation of Einstein's writings on cosmic religious feeling, the relation of science and religion, and the nature of the mystical — with a Krishnamurti passage on education and freedom of mind.Fallen Among Things — On Karma, No-Self, and the Danger of Chunking and BaggingTang Huyen resolves the apparent contradiction between Buddhist karma theory and the no-self teaching, arguing that deed and its return require no substance-self — only impersonal processes regulated by legality, not causality. Draws on SA 335, the Diamond Sutra, and Chrysippus.Fluffing It Out — On the Buddha's Instrumentalist Cosmology and the Only Knowledge That MattersTang Huyen identifies a previously unnoticed contradiction in the Buddha's cosmology of world-cycles and karma, and argues that the Buddha's explaining scheme is a necessary evil — not ultimate truth but provisional scaffolding for an establishment.Getting Framed Versus Rising Above the Frame — On Contradictory Negation, the Four Karmas, and LiberationTang Huyen on how Western atheism is framed by the very Book it rejects, and on the Buddhist distinction between contrary and contradictory negation — liberation as escaping every dimension, not merely one pole of it.Interiority — On Buddhist Teaching as Purely Subjective, Communication, and the World's NeutralityTang Huyen's analysis of why all Buddhist teaching is directed inward, how the awakened communicate about what cannot be communicated, and why the world is agnostic toward suffering.Introduction to talk.religion.buddhismA scholarly introduction to talk.religion.buddhism, the Usenet newsgroup where practitioners and scholars of the Buddhist world gathered for two decades of comparative doctrinal debate, cross-traditional analysis, and first-person accounts of practice.Jumping Through Hoops — On States, Intellective Views, and the Core Paradox of Buddhist and Daoist TeachingTang Huyen examines the two-level problem at the heart of Buddhist and Daoist teaching: the state of non-mentation cannot be described from within non-mentation, yet the teacher must use thought and language to point at it, thereby contradicting the very thing pointed at. Draws on Sengzhao's Xinxin Ming, negative theology, and the Buddhist theory of the made-up self.Lotuses from the Mud of Usenet — 2007Evelyn Ruut's four-part year-end harvest of 2007's best wisdom from talk.religion.buddhism — teachings, koans, and reflections from the newsgroup's regulars.Negative Cosmology, Negative Theology — On Buddha-Nature and the UnknowableTang Huyen draws a parallel between black hole cosmology and negative theology, then argues for the Chan "Manifestation theory" of Buddha-nature: the ultimate is fully present in the phenomenal world, not hidden beyond it.Newsgroup Gems and Other Quotes — 2002Evelyn Ruut's harvest of wisdom from talk.religion.buddhism — quotes and exchanges gathered from the newsgroup and its regulars over the course of 2002.Newsgroup Gems and Other Quotes — 2005Evelyn Ruut's annual harvest of wisdom from talk.religion.buddhism — forty-one quotes and exchanges gathered from the newsgroup and its regulars over the course of 2005.No Regard — On Total Openness, Dropping Problems Wholesale, and the Unobtainable ThoughtsTang Huyen on the Buddha's two-level teaching: the obsessive-compulsive mindfulness practice and the higher critique in which all thing-events are unobtainable — with the Diamond Sutra's past/present/future thoughts as the crux.Non-Mentation — On Mindfulness, Wu-Nian, and the Cessation of ThoughtTang Huyen's 2005 comparative essay explaining the relationship between Buddhist mindfulness (sati) and Chan/Daoist non-mentation (wu-nian/wu-wei), arguing that mindfulness is the vigilance that makes non-mentation possible — with canonical citations from the Pali canon, the Chinese Agamas, and the Dao De Jing.Not Right Off the Package — On the Buddha's Internal Contradictions and the Joy of the AwakenedTang Huyen's argument that the Buddha intentionally overstates for pedagogical effect, with analysis of the dhammata sequence, the four form meditations, and the contradictions within the four seals.On Anger and Its Antidote — A Practitioner's AccountEvelyn Ruut responds to a question about Buddhist anger practice by sharing her own experience: how her teacher instructed her to dedicate all her practice to the person she most resented, and how that practice transformed her relationship with her father.On Death and Parting — A Gathering of WisdomA cross-traditional anthology of Buddhist and secular wisdom on death and grief, compiled by Evelyn Ruut for her Alzheimer's caregiving community.Opposite Orientations — On Buddhism, Science, Theism, and the Instrumentalist View of DharmaTang Huyen argues that Buddhism and science face opposite directions: one seeks more knowledge, the other seeks less — and neither is doing what the other does.Playing with Fluff — On the Instrumentalist View of Buddhist Teaching and Nirvana in the InstantTang Huyen on why all Buddhist teachings are working hypotheses to be discarded once they have done their job — including the Holy Truths themselves — and why Nirvana is blowing-out in the instant, not a permanent possession.Post-mortem Headache — On Parinirvana, the Fourfold Quadrilemma, and What Cannot Be SaidTang Huyen's refutation of a naive reading of parinirvana as a suicide-shortcut to liberation, with extensive Agama citations on the unknowability of the Tathagata after death.Prefabricated — On Fate, Self-Deception, and the Locked LifeTang Huyen examines how a single fundamental choice, made in youth, can lock the entire course of a life in logical deduction — with no recovery possible afterward. A practitioner case study in the relationship between self-deception, spiritual experience, and the Buddhist demand for openness and honesty.Right Speech — A Practitioner's GuideEvelyn Ruut's original 2005 essay on Buddhist right speech: weaving the Abhaya Sutta's six criteria, Ayya Khema's four lines, and the Dhammapada's teaching on hate with personal reflection on internet discourse and the interdependence of speaking and listening.Suffering and Its Limit — On the Three Marks and the Happiness of NirvanaTang Huyen corrects the common mistranslation 'all is suffering,' setting out the precise scope of the Three Marks across Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese Agama sources, and arguing that Nirvana is explicitly described by the Buddha as a state of happiness and joy.Surprise to a Ball — On Koan Meditation, the Buddha's Awakening as Pure Chance, and the Paradox of Recreating a SurpriseTang Huyen on the mechanics of koan meditation as self-induced tension, the Buddha's awakening as total happenstance after abandoning Jaina austerities, and why awakening occurs to nobody.The Buddha's Position on the Absence of Self — On Not-Self as Metaphysical StanceTang Huyen argues against the popular interpretation that the Buddha refused to take a position on the existence of self, demonstrating through canonical Pali and Chinese Agama sources that the Buddha clearly held the self to be a composition (saṅkhāra) and thus fictitious — and that Nirvāṇa is precisely the quiescing of the compositions in which self is produced.The Four Divine Abodes and Their Fruits — A Comparative StudyA scholarly essay by Tang Huyen (2003) tracing the doctrinal history of the Four Brahmaviharas — friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — across early Pali, Chinese Agama, Sanskrit, and Mahayana sources, arguing that the classical understanding of these practices as 'objectless intentioning' was later reconceived in the Great Vehicle as action 'without intentioning' in the real world.The Fundamental Philosophy of Buddhism — On Dependent Arising, the Critique of Language, and the Unsupported MindTang Huyen's comprehensive philosophical exposition of the Buddha's anti-Platonic worldview, tracing the doctrine of Dependent Arising through canonical Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese Agama sources, and contrasting it with Brahmanical artificialsm and Western metaphysics.The Middle Path and the Question of Context — On Existence, Non-Existence, and the Katyayana TeachingTang Huyen's 2007 essay arguing that the Buddha's famous refusal to assert or deny existence is context-dependent — applying to the transcendent, not to ordinary speech — drawing on the Katyayana Sutra (SN III.132-135), the Vatsagotra episode (SN IV.400-401), and AN IV.36.The Twelve Links — A Teaching Compilation on Dependent OriginationEvelyn Ruut's curated teaching on paticca-samuppada for soc.religion.eastern, compiling the classic twelve-links formula from the Samyutta Nikaya and the complete Maha-nidana Sutta (Digha Nikaya 15) — the Buddha's definitive discourse on dependent co-arising, the mutual conditioning of name-and-form and consciousness, seven stations of consciousness, and eight emancipations.Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana Path — A Practitioner's Guide to the ToolsEvelyn Ruut, a longtime Vajrayana practitioner, explains the tools of Tibetan Buddhist practice — visualizations, mantras, ritual, meditation, intellect, teacher, koans — and argues that all of them point ultimately to emptiness and inner transformation, not outer authority.Total Action, Non-Action, and the Dissolution of SelfTang Huyen's philosophical essay on self-dissolution as precondition for total action, with parallels from Dogen, Anaxagoras, Kant, Fénelon, and the Parable of the Saw.Vanity of Vanities — On Logic, Thought, and the Weakness of the Finite MindTang Huyen draws on Mach, Heidegger, and Vuillemin to argue that thought — and therefore logic — arises from human weakness, not strength, and is of thought, not reality.Vertigo — On Buddhist Flux, the Thaetetus, and the Ambiguity of NamesTang Huyen traces the convergence between Buddhist impermanence and dependent arising, Heraclitean flux as reconstructed in Plato's Thaetetus, the Scripture on Ultimate Emptiness, and Chrysippus on the ambiguity of all words — arguing that the Buddha's insight into the unspeakability of self-existent things has independent precedents in Greek philosophy.