by Tang Huyen

"Salvation is in a breeze. If it was any heavier than that, one wouldn't want it. Who would want to do heavy-lifting for salvation? Just let it blow in the wind."

The big picture can take in things that the normal
mind can't conceive. In the big picture, details need
not be blocked out but can be perfectly experienced
as usual, yet situated differently from their usual
position. The difference in the taking of them can
make them wholly different. As I said, shit can be
grace, if one knows how to take it that way. There
is a transparency of mind that has to be experienced
to be believed. It is not a homogeneous blank, yet in
it the things and events of life take on a different
meaning, though meaning here is not intellectual but
sensible. Things and events feel different, though
they are still felt and not blocked out. One way of
saying it is that in eternity things and events feel
different. One only needs to open oneself up to that
outlook. It comes free. It is only a matter of balance
and perspective. If one knows how to swing it there
is no problem. If anything it is the default, the basal
state, the lowest common denominator.

The attitude can make a huge difference — as
between salvation and loss. Once a process like
the living humbly in mindfulness, balance and
perspective, detachment and equanimity is in place,
the content is, not ignored, not blocked out, but
almost fungible. Nirvāṇa is the same as Saṃsāra,
because they are treated the same way. The manner
trumps the matter. That's what salvation is all about.
It can be had in a cave or in prison. Epictetus, a slave,
was owned by a rich man who had been a slave. His
master wanted to have his leg broken, Epictetus said:
"You're going to break my leg", his master gave the
order, the leg was broken, and Epictetus calmly said:
"Just as I told you." Epictetus had salvation whilst his
leg was being broken. There was no interruption. His
handlers could break his leg but could not break his
salvation.

Salvation is in peace, and peace can be developed and
maintained by flexibility, swiftly adapting to changing
circumstances, internal and external — so to speak
staying in the eye of the storm, under the aegis of
living humbly in mindfulness, balance and perspective,
detachment and equanimity. Rigidity will immediately kill
it, but dancing has some chance of success (though it
still has to fit the circumstances), and the return on
investment tends to be disproportionate. It redeems life
and makes life worth living. What reward can be greater
than that? And the investment is what? Merely an
attitude. It comes free. It's just a breeze. Salvation is in
a breeze. If it was any heavier than that, one wouldn't
want it. Who would want to do heavy-lifting for salvation?
Just let it blow in the wind.

I don't claim to have attained to wisdom, but extrapolate
that in its most rarified form it still is living humbly in
mindfulness, balance and perspective, detachment and
equanimity. A contrario, to miss the living humbly in
mindfulness, balance and perspective, detachment and
equanimity is to miss wisdom wholly — regardless of
technicalities and externalities. Yet such living humbly
in mindfulness, balance and perspective, detachment and
equanimity is purely subjective and strictly sentimental.
There is nothing real out there that it can be tied down to.
Which is a part of it being freedom, otherwise it would be
tied down to something real out there, considering the
Parable of the Saw. A contrario, if it was impossible, one
should give up any mental culture at all.

"Monks, as low-down thieves might carve one limb from
limb with a double-handed saw, yet even then whoever
sets his mind at enmity, he, for this reason, is not a doer
of my teaching. Herein, you should train yourselves thus:
'Neither will our minds become perverted, nor will we utter
an evil speech, but kindly and compassionately will we
dwell, with a mind of friendliness (mettā-citta), void of
hatred; and, beginning with him, we will dwell having
suffused the whole world with a mind of friendliness that is
far-reaching, widespread, immeasureable, without enmity,
without malevolence.' This is how you must train yourselves,
monks." MN, I, 129 (21), MA, 30, 465a–466c, 193, 746a,
Mahā-vibhāṣā, T, 27, 1545, 190a–b.

This sutta is called "The Parable of the Saw" (obviously).

The hypothetical monk in question is being sawn up,
but is fully free in dealing with the situation and is
not bound to it. He is free to take it humbly in
mindfulness, balance and perspective, detachment
and equanimity, just as Epictetus is free whilst his
leg breaks. Their attitude is purely subjective and
strictly sentimental. There is nothing real out there
that it can be tied down to. That's what freedom is,
otherwise it would be bondage.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 11 January 2007, in the "tangdroney" thread, in reply to buddhapest, who argued that awakening is primarily having a sense of the ridiculous. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

One of the clearest statements in the corpus of Tang Huyen's central teaching: salvation is an attitude, not a state, and it costs nothing because it comes free. The Epictetus anecdote is the perfect illustration: handlers can break a leg but cannot interrupt the freedom that is purely subjective. The Parable of the Saw (MN I.129) provides the canonical parallel — a monk being sawn in half is asked to maintain mettā, because the freedom of awakening is utterly independent of what is happening to the body. "The manner trumps the matter" is the decisive formulation. Read alongside "Freedom Comes Free" as companion pieces on the cost and structure of liberation.

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

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