by Tang Huyen

"Nirvāṇa and Samsāra are different perspectives on life, not different realities, and they are distinguished by the absence and presence of attachment, not by the object of perception or of sensation."

In the early canon, there are awakening poems, which are not new with Chan. Sona Kolivisa awoke and delivered an awakening speech to the Buddha, including a poem:

Dispassion, mind's detachment, harmlessness,
Grasping's and craving's end, mind undeluded:
Who hath applied himself to these, hath seen
Sensations' rise — his mind wholly freed;
And in that monk, calmed, wholly freed, naught need
Be added to what's done, naught due is found.
As massive crag by wind is never moved,
So sights, tastes, sounds, smells, touches, yea, the things
Longed for and loathed, stir not a man like that;
His mind stands firm, released; he marks their set.

SA, 254, 63b, AN, III, 378 (6, 55), Sangha-bheda-vastu, II, 146, Turfanfunde, IV, 25, Hoernle, Manuscript Remains, 171.

What E. M. Hare translates as "sensations" is the place of sense, āyatana, and a more literal translation would be: he sees the arisal of the places of sense. With regard to the sense impressions, the awakeneds observe their arisal and setting, but add no liking and disliking. That (the same world of perception) is the arena where they deploy detachment and equanimity.

Nirvāṇa and Samsāra are different perspectives on life, not different realities, and they are distinguished by the absence and presence of attachment, not by the object of perception or of sensation. Perception or sensation are not in themselves suffering (a contrario if they were, then suffering would be unavoidable), but suffering is due to attachment to them and is therefore optional. Nirvāṇa and Samsāra are different modes of dealing with the same world. They do not exist apart from such modes of dealing with the world. Therefore Nirvāṇa and Samsāra are as impermanent as everything else.

Awakening and delusion are in the mode of dealing with the world, but are not inherent in the world. A contrario if they were inherent in the world, then after awakening one would live in another world, but we see that the Buddha and Sona still live in our world and still observe the rise and setting of the places of perception, only their mind is released from attaching to sensation or perception, though sensation or perception still proceeds like before. Therefore awakening and delusion are purely subjective, strictly sentimental.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 11 September 2008, in the "Pious untruth" thread. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Sona Kolivisa's poem (AN 6,55) is one of the oldest verified awakening verses in the Pali Canon. TH's gloss centres on the word āyatana — "places of sense" — and the distinction between observing sense-arisal and attaching to it. The consequent claim — that Nirvāṇa and Samsāra are themselves impermanent — is the philosophical sharpening of the Lebensgefühl point in the previous post: if they are not states of things but modes of dealing, they too bubble up and expire. Third post in the September "Pious untruth" cluster.

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

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