by Tang Huyen

A long-running claim holds that Buddhism's karma theory — deed and its return — cannot be reconciled with the teaching of no-self: if there is no agent, how can there be moral consequence? Writing in August 2007, Tang Huyen dissolves the contradiction by showing that karma never required a substance-self in the first place. What it requires is legality: the universe running on its own, from its own side, with impersonal processes linking deed to result without anyone needing to cross the gap. The seizing — the spiritual problem — lies not in karma but in chunking and bagging: the mind's habit of cutting the continuous flow of sensation into named objects, persons, and selves, and then grasping at those cut-up pieces as if they were real. The Bodhisattva who "falls among things" in the Diamond Sutra is precisely the one who has made this mistake. Tang Huyen supports the argument with the Scripture on Ultimate Emptiness (SA 335), Chrysippus on the ambiguity of all language, Kant on conventional ultimate concepts, and Conze's translation of the Vajracchedikā.

There is no contradiction. There would be contradiction if one was to violate the "no self, no being, no living being, no person" teaching.

The point of "no self, no being, no living being, no person" is to avoid chunking and bagging. To avoid chunking and bagging doesn't mean that everything is a homogeneous blank. Everything still occurs the same as before, only one doesn't cut up the flow of what happens into bits and pieces and assemble the bits and pieces into the familiar concept-delimited chunks like tables and chairs, cats and people, etc. The flow of what happens still goes on like before, with its regular patterns, and one receives it intact, only one does not attempt to duplicate such patterns in one's mentation.

The fundamental idea of Buddhism is, not causality, but legality. What happens is regulated by rules and laws, and follows patterns, so it can be relied on to behave in a regular and legal manner, therefore mentation does not need to intervene to keep it functioning. In Brahmanism God (Brahman) creates the universe by thought and maintains it by thought, otherwise it would dissolve into chaos. In Buddhism the universe runs on its own, from its own side, and does not need the support of any mind to keep functioning. Therefore mind is free to leave the universe to function on its own side, and mind does not need to engage in chunking and bagging. Even as mind does not engage in chunking and bagging, the universe (what happens) still happens like before.

Thus causes and effects still occur like before, though one has to be careful here: a cause is due to abstraction which picks out a chunk of what happens and labels it a cause, and an effect is also due to the same abstraction. In raw sensation there is no cause and effect, just as there are no familiar concept-delimited chunks like tables and chairs, cats and people, etc. Those are all due to abstraction, more specifically to chunking and bagging. In the absence of mentation, all happens just like before, so that what normally is called a cause still proceeds like a cause and what normally is called an effect still proceeds like an effect, though mentation has been quiesced and does not give rise to such chunking and bagging.

The Buddhist theory of deed (karman) and its return (phala, vipaka) does not suppose any substance that lies under the process of deed and its return. Deed brings its return without any substance that does the deed and takes the return. There is the deed, there is the return, but there is no substance that perdures and does the deed and takes the return. Everything happens by impersonal processes, and the sense of self or "I" or doer of the deed or actor of the act or taker of the return is illusory (which doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!). It exists but in an illusory manner, by abstraction, just as the familiar concept-delimited chunks like tables and chairs, cats and people, etc. exist by abstraction. It is thought-up and doesn't come in raw sensation.

The Scripture on Ultimate Emptiness (Paramartha-sunyata-sutra), SA, 335, 92c, Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T, 32, 1646, 255b1, 332c7-9, 333a17, Dà zhì dù lùn, T, 25, 1509, 295a4:

The eye, when it arises, does not come from anywhere, and when it ceases, does not anywhere. Thus the eye, having not become, becomes, and having once become, disappears (caksur bhiksava utpadyamanam na kutas cid agacchati, niruddhyamanam ca na kva cit samnicayam gacchati, iti hi bhiksavas caksur abhutva bhavati bhutva ca prativigacchati). There is deed, there is return (of deed), but there cannot be obtained (nopalabhyate) the doer, who throws away these aggregates and takes up other aggregates, except for a linguistic-convention on thing-events, namely, this being, that is, this arising, that arises, this not being, that is not, this not arising, that does not arise, etc. (asti karmasti vipakah karakas tu nopalabhyate ya imams ca skandhan niksipaty anyams ca skandhan pratisamdadhaty anyatra dharma-samketat, tatrayam dharma-samketo yad utasmim satidam bhavaty asyotpadad idam utpadyate, asminn asati idam na bhavati, asya nirodhad idam nirudhyate).

The Buddha says: "this being, that is, this arising, that arises, this not being, that is not, this not arising, that does not arise, etc.", but the "this" and the "that" (actually they are the same word but in different case endings) are temporarily circumscribed and named, and the Buddha is careful to add: "There is deed, there is return (of deed), but there cannot be obtained (nopalabhyate) the doer, who throws away these aggregates and takes up other aggregates, except for a linguistic-convention on thing-events, namely, this being, that is, this arising, that arises, etc."

The Buddha never denies that there is stuff undergoing change, just as he never denies — instead asserts very strongly — the laws that regulate the change. The seizing is in the cutting up of the wholesome sensible input, the labelling of it (chunking and bagging) and the grasping of suchlike labels, especially the "I", the self, etc. Just as in the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures and Naggie, emptiness is the denial of essence which is imputed at the second (metaphysical) level, not the denial of sensible input at the phenomenal level.

The sensible input, when thought-up (and therefore when essence is imputed in the wake of cutting up and labelling, chunking and bagging), is delusion, but when not subject to thought and language, is reality and ultimate reality. So that "there" when not thought-up is reality and ultimate reality to the Buddha, though of course it is not thought up as a "there", and not cut up into bits and pieces and processed accordingly, with labels and associations, intellective, affective or whatever.

To the Buddha, the "this" and the "that" that he cuts up and labels in the stream of life — ignorance, the compositions, consciousness, name-and-form, etc. — are useful for meditation on Dependent Arisal but not ultimate. Ultimately, all those bits that he cuts up and labels as "this" and "that" (ignorance, the compositions, consciousness, name-and-form, etc.) are slippery and cannot be cut up with precision and labelled with precision. Our names and concepts attempts to cut off a bit of the stream of life, freeze it and stabilise it, and this process serves us to some extent, but ultimately is futile and untrue to that it attempts to grasp (its referent).

A Stoic Parallel — Chrysippus on Language and Polarity

I'll take this opportunity to point out how similar some Stoic sayings are to Buddhist ones. There are two passages from Chrysippus that are unfortunately preserved only in Latin translation, and that are as good as anything from Buddhism on the topic of ambiguity of our conceptual delimitations. This ambiguity is not just de facto but also de jure, and can never be wholly removed.

Chrysippus said that every word is ambiguous by nature (Chrysippus ait omne verbum ambiguum natura esse). Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, I, 227, item 37N.

There is absolutely nothing more foolish than those who think that there could have been goods without the coexistence of evils. For since goods are opposite to evils, the two must necessarily exist in opposition to each other and supported by a kind of opposed interdependence. And there is no such opposite without its matching opposite. For how could there be perception of justice if there were no injustices? What else is justice, if not the removal of injustice? Likewise, what appreciation of courage could there be except through the contrast with cowardice? Of moderation, if not from immoderation? How, again, could there be prudence if there were not imprudence opposed to it? Why do the fools similarly wish that there were truth without there being falsity? For goods and evils, fortune and misfortune, pain and pleasure, exist just the same way: they are tied to each other in polar opposition, as Plato said. Remove one, and you remove the other (nihil est prorsus istis insubidius, qui opinantur bona esse potuisse si non essent ibidem mala. nam cum bona malis contraria sint, utraque necessum est opposita inter sese et quasi mutuo adverso quaeque fulta nisu consistere; nullum adeo contrarium est sine contrario altero. quo enim pacto justitiae sensus esse posset, nisi essent injuriae? aut quid aliud justitia est quam injustitiae privatio? quid item fortitudo intellegi posset nisi ex ignaviae adpositione? quid continentia nisi ex intemperantiae? quo item modo prudentia esset, nisi foret contra inprudentia? proinde homines stulti cur non hoc etiam desiderant, ut veritas sit et non sit mendacium? namque itidem sunt bona et mala, felicitas et infortunitas, dolor et voluptas; alterum enim ex altero, sicuti Plato ait, verticibus inter se contrariis deligatum est; si tuleris unum, abstuleris utrumque). Long and Sedley, ibid., I, 329, item 54Q.

Also, something preserved in Greek is Plutarch, De Communibus notitiis, 1078e (Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, I, 298, 50C): There is no extreme body in nature, neither first nor last, into which the size of a body terminates. But there always appears something beyond the assumed, and the body in question is thrown into the infinite and boundless.

Kant, Logik, IX, 97: It is only comparatively and for usage that there are ultimate concepts, which take this meaning only as it were by convention, to the extent that one is agreed not to go more deeply on this occasion [Nur comparativ für den Gebrauch giebt es niedrigste Begriffe, die gleichsam durch Convention diese Bedeutung erhalten haben, sofern man übereingekommen ist, hierbei nicht tiefer zu gehen].

Fallen Among Things

So, there is no contradiction between the theory of deed and its return and the "no self, no being, no living being, no person" teaching. There would be contradiction if one was to violate the "no self, no being, no living being, no person" teaching, jump on the chunks and bags and assume that there is a self or "I" that does the deed and takes the return for it. Such chunks and bags are called "morsel" (pinda) or thing (vastu) in the Diamond.

Conze, Vajracchedika Prajñaparamita, 42, 78:

A man who has entered darkness would not see anything. Just so would be viewed a Bodhisattva who has fallen among things (vastu-patito).

Ibid., 60, 91:

Subhuti: If, O Blessed One, there would have been a world-system (loka-dhatu), that would have been (a case of) seizing on a material object (pinda-graha), and what was taught as seizing on a material object by the Tathagata, just so as no-seizing that was taught by the Tathagata. Therefore it is called seizing on a material object. The Blessed One: And also, Subhuti, that seizing on a material object (pinda-graha) is inexpressible, and not to be talked about. It is not a dharma or a no dharma. And yet it has been seized upon by foolish common people.

Colophon

Originally posted to alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen, talk.religion.buddhism, and alt.buddha.short.fat.guy on 18 August 2007. Author: Tang Huyen. The post responds to a question about the apparent contradiction between karma and no-self. Key sources cited: the Scripture on Ultimate Emptiness (Paramartha-sunyata-sutra, SA 335); Chrysippus in Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (items 37N, 54Q, 50C); Kant, Logik, IX, 97; Conze, Vajracchedika Prajñaparamita, 42, 78 and 60, 91.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

🌲