by Tang Huyen
In May 2008, Tang Huyen posted to talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, and alt.philosophy.zen a meditation on what it means to be "framed" by your own opposition. Beginning with the observation that Western atheists accept the premises of the Book before they reject it, the essay expands into a rigorous account of the Buddhist distinction between two kinds of negation.
In a contrary negation, good opposes evil within a single dimension, and both extremes are all there is. In a contradictory negation, good still opposes evil, but there is something outside that entire opposition. Awakening, in Buddhism, is that outside — it escapes the dimension constituted by good/evil, exists/does-not-exist, name/form, merit/demerit, and every other pair. To achieve liberation is not to choose one pole but to drop the dimension itself.
The argument is anchored in the canonical teaching on four kinds of karma (AN II.230-231, with parallel in MA 111): black deeds with black result, white deeds with white result, mixed deeds with mixed result, and the fourth — neither black nor white, with no result — the volition to cut all three other kinds. The Ang̣uttara-Nikāya itself calls nibbāna "neither black nor white" (AN III.387). Awakening is not transcending evil and attaining good. It is escaping the dimension of good-and-evil entirely.
On Getting Framed
In life as in debate, one should be careful about how one approaches it, and in debate one should be careful about the terms in which one takes it. If one's interlocutor throws some conditions of debate (the terms of the debate) at one and one immediately jumps on them and takes them for oneself, one has already suffered defeat even before the debate begins, as one has already been framed. If one doesn't want defeat, one has to choose the terms of the debate for oneself so that one doesn't get framed (by one's interlocutor) and can proceed the way one wants to proceed, rather than the way one's interlocutor wants one to proceed.
Even before that, one has to decide whether such a debate is worth it. If one regards the notion of a "supreme being" as inane and fatuous, then why bother devoting time and energy to fight such an idea? Why not let it wallow in its inanity of its own accord?
The agnostics accept the premises of the Book, but only negate them. A genuine critical thinker is different, in that he or she stands back from Bookist assumptions and refuses them right off, and therefore does not need to fight them. He sees them as inane and fatuous, and therefore that it is not worth wasting his time fighting them.
Getting framed by what one fights against is a persistent danger. To fight the Bookist God without paying attention to the possibility that one has enslaved oneself to the object of one's scorn — to become the exact anti-type of the type one fights against — is a good definition of being framed. It doesn't matter whether one is framed in concave or convex; in either case one is framed.
Contrary Negation Versus Contradictory Negation
Here in logic there is the distinction between a contrary negation and a contradictory negation.
The negation is contrary, in that, for instance, the good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, and axiology works on that single dimension, in that the former is taken to be of more worth than the latter, and both extremes are in the same dimension and there is nothing outside of the dimension. The dimension is the whole range of validity of application, and one's thought moves only within it. It exhausts the scope of thought on the topic.
In Buddhism, the negation is contradictory, in that the good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, but that there is that which is outside of that opposition, and axiology works on that dimension and in excess of that dimension, in that the former (good/skilful) is taken to be of more worth than the latter (bad/unskilful), but that both extremes are in the same dimension and there is something outside of the dimension. The dimension is not the whole range of validity of application, as there is something that the dimension does not apply to, does not encompass, and is flatly invalid with.
In modern logic, there is the distinction between an abstract quality and the concrete exemplifications of it. It is not the case that [the colour green is green or not green], because it is abstract; but physical things can be green or not green. The colour green is outside the range of application of green and not green, as this range pertains only to physical things.
The Four Kinds of Karma
The Buddha says that a person composes harmful body compositions, harmful speech compositions, harmful mind compositions, and having composed them he arises in a harmful world. Ditto with harmless compositions, and both harmful and harmless compositions. AN I.122-123 (3, 23).
The Buddha says that there are four kinds of deeds, the black deed with black result (vipāka), the white deed with white result, the black and white deed with black and white result, and the neither black nor white deed with neither black nor white result — it has no result (Skt. a-vipāka). The first three are the same as those of the preceding text; the fourth and last — which is neither harmful nor harmless, and therefore not deed at all, and which will not lead to any re-arisal in any world, harmful or harmless — is the volition (cetanā) to cut all three other kinds of deed, leading to the ending of deed (kamma-kkhāya, Skt. karma-kṣaya). AN II.230-231 (4, 232), MA 111, 600a26-28.
At AN III.387 (6, 57), the blowing-out (nibbāna) is called neither black nor white.
The Buddha says: "By the cutting of craving, deed is cut; by the cutting of deed, suffering is cut." SN V.86 (46, 26).
Thus skilful and unskilful deeds are both dropped and indeed all deed is dropped. The teaching on skilful and unskilful deeds is mere means, and they lead to the ending of deed altogether, which is the end, namely liberation. In liberation one has dropped both extremes, and not only has one dropped both extremes, but one has also dropped the dimension that encompasses both extremes.
Liberation from All Dimensions
In Buddhism, the good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, both belong to the same dimension, and both belong to delusion. Awakening escapes that dimension, is outside of that dimension, so constitutes a contradictory negation, in that the pair good/skilful versus bad/unskilful does not apply to it, is flatly invalid with it. Awakening is outside of the dimension constituted by good/skilful and bad/unskilful. Both extremes and the dimension constituted by them has to be dropped altogether for awakening to occur.
The pair good/skilful versus bad/unskilful is made up by mentation and works within mentation, but is good to mentation (its maker), and does not extend beyond mentation. Awakening ends mentation and thus surpasses the pair good/skilful versus bad/unskilful.
What it comes down to is that eradicating in Buddhism applies to both good/skilful and bad/unskilful, though at the beginning some works may need to be done in the good/skilful versus bad/unskilful line, in the favour of the former and to the detriment of the latter, to prepare for the eventual dropping of both. But the work is not done until both are dropped singly and together.
Just to remind ourselves of what extremes the Buddha inveighs against explicitly: good/skilful and bad/unskilful, merit and demerit, male and female, existence (bhava) and non-existence (vi-bhava), self-indulgence and self-mortification, eternalism and annihilationism, name and form (nāma-rūpa), etc.
The last pair, name and form (nāma-rūpa), is commonly understood in our time as mind and matter. It is one link in Dependent Arisal, and it has to be dropped. Both members of it have to be dropped, and the dimension constituted by them (name and form, mind and matter) has to be dropped.
In liberation one drops all such dimensions of thought, and each dimension is constituted by a pair of extremes. Liberation is liberation from all such dimensions. It is free of norms and standards, baskets and cages, criteria and references.
Colophon
Originally posted to talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen, and alt.buddha.short.fat.guy by Tang Huyen, May 14, 2008. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
This essay offers one of Tang Huyen's clearest expositions of a recurring theme: that liberation in Buddhism is not the victory of good over evil, or of nirvana over samsara, but the dropping of every binary dimension — every pair of extremes and the dimension constituted by them. The canonical anchor is the four-karma teaching of the Anguttara-Nikaya (AN II.230-231, MA 111), where nibbana is explicitly "neither black nor white." The logical framework of contrary vs. contradictory negation gives the argument philosophical precision. The opening observations on being "framed" by one's opponent show why the same structural trap catches Western atheism and Usenet flamers alike.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
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