by Tang Huyen

That's about as concise and all-inclusive
summary of the philosophical worldview of Buddhism
as you ever get, and you don't need to read all
the arcane technical developments.

To me all you need is fluff, all you need is to treat
everything as fluff.

If you want something more expanded and lyrical,
try Jen's immortal words:

it's all just a play of ideas, no need to
take it seriously. it's a passing fancy, a
caprice, a felicity.

trying to box it in with concepts is never
ending and never satisfying.

That's about as concise and all-inclusive summary
of the philosophical worldview of Buddhism (here I
exclude the technique, like technique of meditation)
as you ever get, and you don't need to read all the
arcane technical developments (which by the way
don't add anything to any understanding of Buddhism
within thought and language).

If you practice as above, you'll get rid of most of your
suffering, and the rest is bearable, without benefit of any
technique. If you want technique on top of that, you may
surely get it, but by then you won't need most of it, anyway.
Most of the people on these boards who practice
industrial-strength technique are nowhere near attaining
to the above yet. And you don't need any language other
than plain English for the above.

Technique is fluff, too, like everything else.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 31, 2005, in reply to Tad Perry's objection to the Nichiren "this is all you need, just repeat this" doctrine. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen's most compressed statement of Buddhist philosophy: the whole of it can be stated without technical jargon, without arcane canonical development, in Jen's plain English — a play of ideas, no need to take it seriously, don't try to box it in. The embedded quotation is from Jen, a Hinduist participant in the newsgroup (referred to by Tang Huyen elsewhere as a "Hinduist granny from Detroit"), whose formulation Tang Huyen repeatedly calls "immortal." Industrial-strength technique, while not condemned, is placed downstream of the basic philosophical attitude — most practitioners lack that attitude and no amount of technique compensates.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Works Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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