by Tang Huyen

Awakening is no panacea. It only ends suffering for oneself.

Wisdom leaves behind norms and standards, concepts and
categories, structures and frameworks. In such absence of
guidelines — and the Law, Dharma, and the precepts and
discipline, Vinaya, are mere guidelines that require
interpretation and have nothing cut-and-dried about them —
one strikes in the dark, in hit or miss. The normal deluded
person, with all his norms and standards, concepts and
categories, structures and frameworks weighing down on him,
strikes in the dark, in hit or miss, and the fully awakened
person, relieved of such guidelines, also strikes in the dark,
in hit or miss. That's the basic human condition.

Awakening includes as part of it the acceptance of one's limits,
and a human mind is limited; therefore a fully awakened person
still makes mistakes and errors, sometimes deadly, as with the
mass suicide of monks who performed the contemplation of the
unclean under the direction of the Buddha and in his physical
vicinity. Awakening doesn't lead to miracles, such as the
surpassing of human limits.

Let's remember that awakening leaves good and evil, merit and
demerit behind.

Dhammapada, XXVI, 412, tr. Thanissaro:

"He has gone
beyond attachment here
for both merit & evil —
sorrowless, dustless, & pure:
he's what I call
a brahman."

The same, tr. Buddharakkhita:

"He who in this world has transcended the ties of both merit
and demerit, who is sorrowless, stainless and pure — him do
I call a holy man."

Such a person has left behind lust, hatred and delusion — the
three poisons — but has nothing positive to guide him. He has
no self left and therefore doesn't confuse self-interests with
altruistic interests, but otherwise is as susceptible to mistakes
and errors as deludeds are. He may or may not have any
compassion to other humans, may or may not want to share
his knowledge of how he got to his awakening with others, and
if he so wants, may or may not command the skills to help them
get to where he is. Even if he has mind-reading power, it works
for some people and not others, and with those for whom it
works, he can know their state of mind now but has to guess the
effect of his intervention on them in the future. It bears
repeating that there's no guarantee that such effect is going to
be good or beneficial.

Awakening is no panacea. It only ends suffering for oneself.
Everything else is so to speak frivolous and gratuitous. It can
go both ways. Which is why many awakeneds don't teach.

Tang Huyen

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on May 28, 2005, in reply to "[email protected]" on the thread "Ah, but do they lead beyond error?" Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The thread concerns whether precepts and wisdom alone are sufficient guides for ethical action. Tang Huyen's response cuts underneath the question: wisdom does not substitute better guidelines for worse ones — it leaves all guidelines behind. This means the awakened person is not better at navigating ethical complexity; they are simply without the self that compounds it. The historical note — the mass suicide of monks under the Buddha's direct guidance — is characteristic: Tang Huyen consistently grounds his arguments in canonical events that orthodox teachers prefer not to dwell on. The dual citation of Dhammapada XXVI.412 (Thanissaro and Buddharakkhita) grounds the claim that the saint transcends merit and demerit alike in the earliest accessible sources. The closing sentence is the sharpest summary of Tang Huyen's anti-hagiographic position: awakening ends one's own suffering. It is not a technology for improving the world.

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

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