by Tang Huyen

Their action is total action, yet it also is non-action,
and there is nobody acting it.

The awakened have ended the three poisons, desire,
hatred, error, and that ending is defined as Nirvāṇa.
They have ended their mental suffering, and that
ending is defined as Nirvāṇa. They can stop their
mentation and no longer give rise to the thought of
self and what-belongs-to-self, though when needed
they can reactivate their mentational apparatus but
it will be transparent (and not opaque), light (and
not heavy), thin (and not thick), manipulable (and
not unwieldy). Their mentational apparatus is their
tool and not their master, and it is active only when
they need it. They are internally outside of norms
and standards, though externally still subject to
societal laws and customs. They have calmed their
mind, cleaned it up, emptied it out, and can choose
to act or not to act, but if they act (which they are
under no obligation to), they act from that
background of calmness, cleanliness and emptiness,
which sometimes goes under the name of no-mind.
They have harmonised their energies and are not
divided or fragmented, surely not against themselves,
and when they act, they act as a whole and not in a
divided or fragmented manner. Their action is total
action, yet it also is non-action, and there is nobody
acting it.

That's about all that can be expected from them,
if I get the matter aright. All else is up to them,
and that's their freedom.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on March 1, 2005, in reply to "dmchess" (a regular interlocutor) on the subject of what it means for the awakened to be "gone beyond" ethical categories. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The post gives Tang Huyen's most concentrated description of the awakened state as a whole: Nirvāṇa as the cessation of the three poisons (desire, hatred, error); the mentational apparatus reduced from master to tool — transparent, light, thin, manipulable; the energies harmonised and self dropped. The awakened move outside of norms internally while remaining subject to societal laws externally. The closing synthesis draws on the Daoist/Chan vocabulary of wu-wei (non-action) alongside the Mahāyāna vocabulary of total action: "Their action is total action, yet it also is non-action, and there is nobody acting it." The qualifier — "That's about all that can be expected from them, if I get the matter aright" — is characteristic Tang Huyen: the liberating insight delivered with deliberate diffidence.

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

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