by Tang Huyen

In April 2008, responding on talk.religion.buddhism to a poster who observed that Buddhist morality is "a personal affair directed inward," Tang Huyen turned that offhand observation into a sustained philosophical essay on what it means for all Buddhist teaching to be purely subjective and strictly sentimental — and why this creates an almost insuperable problem for communication.

The post addresses three connected questions: How can the awakened speak about a state that is outside thought and language? Why do Buddhist and Daoist teachers resort to self-contradiction and inanity? And what is the relationship between the "objective world" — impermanence, no-self — and the purely subjective reality of suffering and liberation? Tang Huyen's answer is radical: the impermanence of things and their lack of self-essence are not facts about the universe, but pedagogical detours — smokescreen to protect the innocent from a teaching that is, at bottom, entirely about what we do to ourselves.

The essay also offers a frank account of how that same logical structure — the self-contradictory system in which anything can be said — was exploited by Japanese Zen nationalists to justify war crimes, and why the mindfuck is a genuine structural danger in Buddhism and Daoism alike.

Actually, if I get it aright, all Buddhist teachings are merely a personal affair directed inward, to be applied to oneself alone, for one's internal awakening, and not to be applied to the outside world as such.

Granted, we are humans, and share some commonalities with other humans, with animals, and with nature out there. But Buddhist teachings deal only with our internal states, and aim only at purely subjective, strictly sentimental states that only we experience, even if others can guess them through what transpires from us to the outside world, as in our behaviour. Whether we like it or not, we ooze ourselves out at all time, from all over.

The Problem of Language

Firstly, the awakened state is outside of thought and language, and to talk about it requires thought and language, which irremediably prostitutes it beyond recognition. And it is shorn of attachment, therefore those who are qualified to talk about it, namely the awakeneds (among whom I do not count myself), if they opt to talk about it (which they may well opt not to), talk about it in such a way as to point to the absence of attachment, and one way of doing so is to negate what they say immediately after saying it, especially seeing that what they say misses the target anyway, not in degree but in kind. And therefore what they say is self-contradictory, and everybody knows that in a self-contradictory system anything can be said. That part is the core of the mindfuck in Buddhism and Daoism, by which anything can be said and called true Buddhism and Daoism, which is something that Japanese Zen masters who were nationalist jingoists in WW II knew well and exploited all the way to justify and validate mass murder and other kinds of unspeakable war crimes.

Secondly, the awakened state is purely subjective, strictly sentimental, has no content specific to itself (like the beatific vision in theistic religions) and there is nothing to pin it down to. If there was something that it can be tied down to, it would be bondage and not freedom. But to charge right in and talk about such a purely subjective, strictly sentimental state can be quite disorienting. People communicate by what is common, and such a state is outside of thought and language, therefore is not common to them and is very hard to communicate about unless one resorts to lots of roundabouts, like metaphors, metonyms, and various contradictions and inanities that are aimed at defeating themselves (they are not aimed at some truth or reality existing from its own side but only at breaking the hold of language and thought). Language and thought work by chunking and bagging, and the only way to communicate about such a state is to use language and thought to break themselves and point to what is outside of them. It is to use falsity to teach truth.

Thirdly, given that people understand by what is common to them, such a purely subjective, strictly sentimental state can be broached obliquely, by way of what is not it, namely the objective world, and the objective world as chunked and bagged by language and thought, as it is what people find common to them. Therefore the awakeneds fall back on the conventional world as interpreted by conventional boxes, namely language and thought, to point to what is outside of them and free of them.

Thus instead of saying that attachment should be dropped (which is a purely subjective, strictly sentimental approach), they have to modulate their message by way of the world and say that things are impermanent and should not be attached to, because attaching to them leads to suffering. Strictly speaking, it is impossible to know for sure that in the whole universe all things are impermanent. But such a tactic is resorted to to help people release attachment and end their suffering. Instead of saying that to build up a self leads to suffering (which is a purely subjective, strictly sentimental approach), the awakeneds have to say that things lack self, essence and substance, and attaching to them leads to suffering. Strictly speaking, it is impossible to know for sure that in the whole universe all things lack self, essence and substance. But such a tactic is resorted to to help people release attachment and end their suffering.

The Smokescreen of the World

It can be argued that in some parts of the universe there could be things that are permanent and have self, essence and substance, but that for us to attach to them would still lead to suffering (and they can be right in our region, though our limited perception misses them entirely, or they can get into our perception but our limited mindset does not allow for them). Again such an approach would be purely subjective, strictly sentimental and would be hard to understand to people who only think by way of the objective world.

The detour by way of the world still comes with automatic negation of what has just been said (that part is not bypassable in the teaching of the awakeneds), and this automatic negation lends itself to the negation of self, essence and substance, in things and not just in us.

Returning to the contradiction that the lack of self, essence and substance leads to, this weakness has been exploited by the opponents of Buddhism, especially the opponents of the Middlist school (Mādhyamaka), reputedly founded by Nāgārjuna. This school teaches the absence of essence (a-svabhāva) in all things, us included. Its opponents say that if all things lack self, essence and substance, there should be total randomness. Anything can become anything whatsoever. Now we observe regularities and expectabilities, inside and outside us, and not total randomness. The regularities and expectabilities are not total, but they are there.

What we think and say does refer to something with some pattern of regularity and expectability, to some degree or other. So whether there is self, essence and substance or not, we observe some modicum of regularities and expectabilities. It is not the regularities and expectabilities themselves that cause suffering, for if they did, then suffering would be inevitable. It is our investing them with self, essence and substance that causes suffering, and it is our abstaining from doing so that frees us from suffering. It is our agglutinating them and congealing them into certainties and fixities that do us in. Again the cause of suffering is purely subjective, strictly sentimental, so is the solution to suffering, and so is the state that it leads to, Nirvāṇa (and, by the way, so is faring-on, Saṃsāra). The detour by way of the objective world is mere smokescreen, to protect the innocent.

The World's Neutrality

Suffering and the ending of suffering have scarcely anything to do with the world. We cannot change the world but can only change ourselves. It is not the matter (of the world) that matters in suffering and the ending of suffering, it is only the manner in which we deal with it. The objective world, whether there is or not any permanent thing in it, whether or not anything in it has self, essence and substance, is so to speak neutral with regard to suffering and the ending of suffering. It is agnostic with regard to suffering and the ending of suffering. It doesn't know suffering and the ending of suffering and doesn't allocate between them. It merely offers a place for us to perpetrate suffering on ourselves, or not.

Suffering and the ending of suffering are what we do to ourselves, and the world is a mere bystander. There is nothing objective that forces us to cause suffering to ourselves and inflict suffering on ourselves. Again, if there was something objective that forced us to cause suffering to ourselves and inflict suffering on ourselves, we should be stuck. It is only our choice, one way or the other. It is up to us. That is our margin of freedom. And it is as big as the universe. Nothing limits it, other than us.

Colophon

Originally posted to talk.religion.buddhism, alt.philosophy.zen, soc.culture.china, alt.zen, and alt.buddha.short.fat.guy by Tang Huyen, April 23, 2008. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A lucid and uncomfortably honest account of the structural problem of Buddhist communication. Tang Huyen identifies the awakened state as purely subjective and strictly sentimental — with no fixed content, no object to be pinned down — and shows why this forces teachers to "use falsity to teach truth." He acknowledges frankly that the same self-contradictory structure that enables this pedagogy also enables its abuse, as by WWII Zen nationalists. The essay's concluding argument — that the world is simply agnostic toward suffering, and our margin of freedom is as big as the universe — is among Tang Huyen's most memorable formulations.

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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