by Tang Huyen

"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."

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), Samtani,
Arthaviniscaya-Sutra, 115, also Zitate, 232.

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,
though this is left implicit, 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-kkhaya, Skt.
karma-kṣaya). AN, II, 230–231 (4, 232), MA, 111,
600a26–28, Zitate, 312, Stache-Rosen, Saṅgiti-sūtra,
113, Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T, 32, 1646, 281a23–24,
Mahā-vibhāṣā, T, 27, 1545, 589c.

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. Here one has to distinguish
between means and end. 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.

Here 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 respect to.

That which is outside of the dimension has no relation
to the dimension and is not touched by the dimension.
It is touched by neither good/skilful nor bad/unskilful.
It is neither black nor white. It is the neither-black-nor-
white blowing-out (nibbāna).

One way of picturing the difference is to see it as the
difference between a line and the plane in which the
line lies. The contrary negation involves moving along
the line, from one end of the line (the good/skilful) to
the other end (the bad/unskilful). The contradictory
negation moves out of the plane altogether. The
dimension (the line) is left behind, together with the
plane in which it lies.

The distinction is useful here: one moves from the
good/skilful end of the line to the bad/unskilful end of
the line (a contrary negation within the dimension). But
one also moves out of the plane of the line (a
contradictory negation beyond the dimension). The
first move is immanent, the second transcendent. The
second move (transcendence) is liberation.

Buddhism employs both kinds of negation, but the
contradictory negation (transcendence) is the key one,
the one that characterises liberation. The contrary
negation (immanent correction) is means, the
contradictory negation (transcendence) is the end.

Examples of the pairs of extremes that are proscribed
against explicitly, they are: 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

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 20 January 2007, in the "The non-symbolical mind icicle" thread, in reply to Hollywood Lee. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A systematic and logically precise statement of the structure of Buddhist liberation. The contrary/contradictory negation distinction is applied with precision: conventional ethics operates by contrary negation (moving from bad toward good along the same axis), while Buddhist liberation operates by contradictory negation (exiting the axis entirely). The spatial image — a line in a plane, then exiting the plane — is one of the clearest geometric renderings of transcendence in the corpus. The canonical citations (AN, MA, SN, Arthaviniscaya, Mahā-vibhāṣā) ground the logical analysis in the earliest strata of Buddhist thought. Read alongside "The Normless and Standardless Mind" (<[email protected]>) as companion pieces in the January 2007 logic-of-liberation cluster.

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

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