by Tang Huyen

It is the very extremity of his error that speeds up his awakening from his error. Had his error been minor, it would have counted for almost nothing in helping him freeing himself from it, but since it is so gigantic, it simply makes his waking up from it so much quicker and more dramatic, by contrast.

The Buddha's period of Jaina self-starvation and
self-mortification is revolt in pure form. For six years
he attempts to beat down his nature — what he is — by
denying it whatever gratification we humans give
ourselves in our daily life and on the contrary piling
pain upon pain on himself, physical and mental. He
imposes himself on his nature, beats it down, seeks to
vanish it by sheer will.

Then he realises that it has all been a massive error.
It is his first awakening — to stop inflicting suffering
on himself, and in his case, it has been for nought.
He relents, eats again, regains strength, enters
meditation, quiesces the compositions (the fourth
aggregate), and awakens a second time, this time to
the quiet and quiescent mind which does not attempt
to impose itself at all on whatever it receives.

Ironically, it is in this state of the calming of all
mental functions except pure consciousness of raw,
uninterpreted sensation that the fullness of life
blooms forth unimpeded.

But let us return to his Jaina period of extreme
asceticism, during which he inflicts on himself
self-starvation and self-mortification. This period
exemplifies the most blatant lack of peace with
himself, for he denies himself, represses himself,
negates himself, rejects himself to the full. He eats
very little, suppresses his thinking, generally does
everything to frustrate himself. It is an acting out
of unease with himself in the most extreme form.

It is the very extremity of his error that speeds up
his awakening from his error. Had his error been
minor, it would have counted for almost nothing in
helping him freeing himself from it, but since it is
so gigantic, it simply makes his waking up from it
so much quicker and more dramatic, by contrast.

The way out of illusion is through it:

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
— Blake.

So he does go through a phase of peace with
himself and reconciliation with himself before
his mental culture bears fruit, even if it is very brief.
Without that attainment of peace with himself and
reconciliation with himself, nothing would have
worked.

The awakened in Buddhism never raises a thought
to create a self for himself, even less imposes that
self on anything. He opens himself up to what
happens, and takes whatever shape it presents to
him. He is infinitely flexible, and adapts himself to
what happens without putting up any resistance.

He has no problem, even less seeks any answer for
it. He does not even raise a thought about anything,
even less to create problems for himself and then to
run around seeking answers for them.

This awakened state is just the extreme form of
peace with himself and reconciliation with himself,
and it is so extreme that he lets go of his self and
his world and just lives, without raising any thought
about self and world. They (self and world) have
all been settled and squared away.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on December 20, 2004, in reply to Lee Dillion's challenge that Tang Huyen's requirement of "peace with oneself before mental culture" would disqualify the Buddha himself during his years of wandering. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The post accepts the challenge and turns it: yes, the Buddha's Jaina period was a failure of peace with himself — revolt in pure form. But that is precisely why it worked. The extremity of the error forced the extremity of the awakening from it. The Blake quotation ("road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) is used to frame the mechanism: the error must be gone through completely, not circumvented. Tang Huyen's conclusion links this to his broader account of the awakened state: it is peace with oneself taken to its extreme, where even the notions of self and world are no longer raised.

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

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