by Tang Huyen

In January 2005, Tang Huyen posted to talk.religion.buddhism in response to a thread touching on the silence of the Tathagata and the is-ness of things. Tang Huyen declined to stay silent: he marshalled Augustine on the absolute is-ness of God, observed that Clinton's "it depends on what is is" is the exact inverse of "is is" in utter separation, and closed by noting — with characteristic wit — that whoever on the boards had just uttered the phrase was an Augustine clone in perfect innocence.

I am stupefied by the eternal repetition of almost immutable patterns.

This is in direct contradiction to Clinton's "It depends on what 'is' is", rather it is that "is is." In utter separation.

Augustine, Confessions, XIII, 31, 46:

"By which [the Holy Spirit] we see that whatever in some manner is, because it is good: it is from he who is, not in some manner, but is the 'is' (per quem videmus, quia bonum est, quidquid aliquo modo est: ab illo enim est, qui non aliquo modo est, sed est est)."

Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum 134, 4:

"Did he not urge us to seek and distinguish what is that good which is good by another good, and that good which is itself good? How good must therefore that be, from which all goods are? No good at all can be found which is not good from it. As he properly is the good which makes others good, so he is properly the good. It is neither true that what are made by him are not, nor is any wrong done to him when we say that what he made are not... Now therefore what he made are, we come to the comparison of them with him... All possible means of naming and saying God taken away, he answered that he called himself being itself, and as if it was his name: 'You will say to the sons of Israel,' he says, 'that the one who is sent me to you.' For he is such, indeed, that in comparison with him what are made are not, but if they are not compared with him, they are. If one does not compare him with them, they are, because they are from him; when compared with him, they are not, because to truly be is to be immutable, which he alone is. For he is the 'is,' just as the good of the goods is 'good.'"

As Jewish mythology says, there is nothing new under the sun. Scholastic Latin of the most impeccable kind and streetwise American English carry the same patterns, in pristine purity. Who would have thunk of an Augustine clone amongst us?

Colophon

Originally posted to talk.religion.buddhism by Tang Huyen, January 2, 2005. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen was a prolific and meticulous contributor to talk.religion.buddhism whose posts constitute some of the most rigorous comparative Buddhist philosophy in the Usenet archive. This brief essay is Tang Huyen at his most classically learned: two passages from Augustine in Latin and English on the ontological hierarchy of being — God as the absolute 'is,' creation as being-only-in-comparison — punctuated by a deadpan observation on the repetition of metaphysical patterns across two millennia and two continents. The Clinton reference, opening what becomes a serious philosophical point, is characteristic Tang Huyen wit.

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

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