by Tang Huyen

Buddhist negation is gentle, about the mind, whereas Hinduist negation is brutal, about the thing.

This is where Buddhism is different from Hinduism. When all particularities (marks, signs, characteristics, etc.) are "thought away" or left out or abstracted, Hinduism poses something positive and permanent at the bottom of the transitory, and that something is the Oneness of Brahman, the ultimate support. Buddhism simply takes all the transitory to be all there is, and even what lies at the bottom of all perception, consciousness, is itself transitory, and thus there is no ultimate support.

"the bodhi-sattva (a being devoted to awakening) mahā-sattva (a great being) ought to give rise to an un-supported thought (a-pratiṣṭhitaṃ cittam), to a thought unsupported by anything (na kvacit-pratiṣṭhitaṃ cittam), to a thought unsupported by form, sound, scent, flavour, tangible, object-of-mind."

This famous disquisition from the Diamond is supposed to trigger an awakening in Hui-neng when he heard it.

The difference between Hinduism and Buddhism consists in this, that Hinduism is a philosophy of substance, whereas Buddhism is a philosophy of absence of substance, a philosophy of emptiness (emptiness officially means absence of substance). Hinduism thinks and talks of things (de re), whereas Buddhism thinks and talks of mind (de intellectu).

In the above disquisition, the Diamond says that everything still happens like usual, and the Buddhist cultivator still perceives as usual (does not block out sensible input), but he does not congeal and agglutinate perceptual stuff into things and objects. We in delusion congeal and agglutinate perceptual stuff into things and objects, by way of chunking and bagging, and even before chunking and bagging, we stabilise the perceptual stuff and then cut it up and fit the resulting bits and pieces into our norms and standards. In stabilising the perceptual stuff, we stop on it, stand on it, and proceed from such a station to the chunking and bagging. The Buddhist cultivator perceives as usual, but does not stop on perceptual stuff and does not stand on it, does not stabilise it, but lets it flow on, and that is how he gives rise to a thought/mind that is not supported by perceptual stuff, though he is open to such perceptual stuff. If anything, he is more open to such perceptual stuff than deluded people, because he does not attempt to force-fit it into his mentational parameters, but leaves it to be what it is from its own side (though he only perceives what goes through his perceptual apparatus, which is limited and not perfect).

This is why I say that the Buddhist cultivator adjusts to what he does not know, attunes to what he does not know, because to know means to fit something into our norms and standards, more precisely our mentational parameters, in order to know it by our mentational parameters, but in not stopping on perceptual stuff and not standing on it, in not stabilising it, the Buddhist cultivator lets it flow on on its own side without his intervention, and thus he adjusts to what he does not know, attunes to what he does not know. He does not block out the perceptual stuff, does not blank it out, but merely does not stop on it, stand on it, stabilise it, chunk it and bag it.

Hinduism takes the same pattern but turns it into a pattern about the object to be perceived, and makes the object to be perceived blank and markless, on its own side. Thus Oneness is a characterless, attributeless object, so characterless and attributeless that it hasn't even the character and attribute of being characterless and attributeless.

Buddhist negation is gentle, about the mind, whereas Hinduist negation is brutal, about the thing.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on March 16, 2008. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Tang Huyen was a scholar of Buddhist studies with deep command of Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan sources. Posting to talk.religion.buddhism and related groups from 2003 to 2008, he was among the most rigorous analytical voices in the English-language Buddhist Usenet world. This post makes a precise phenomenological distinction between Buddhist and Hindu negation at the level of perception. Hinduism abstracts away particulars and arrives at a positive residue (Brahman, the eternal support). Buddhism denies even that residue: consciousness is transitory, there is no ultimate support, the Diamond Sutra's a-pratiṣṭhitaṃ cittam is a thought that does not stop and stand on perceptual flux but lets it flow. The Buddhist is therefore more open to perception than the deluded person — not blocking, but not stabilising. TH's closing formulation — Buddhist negation gentle, about the mind; Hinduist negation brutal, about the thing — is one of his most compressed comparative distinctions.

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

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