by Tang Huyen
Mother Nature struts out all her charms to reward the person who can get there, as if to justify and validate herself.
The Buddha does say that he teaches only suffering
and the ending of suffering, but that is a gross
simplification that serves as an overall synopsis to his
teaching. He defines nirvāṇa as the ending of the
three poisons, desire, hatred, error, but he also
defines it as the complete calming of the
compositions, the fourth aggregate, and the complete
calming of the fourth aggregate is the same as the
complete calming of all thought. The state of no-self
cannot be attained until all thought is quiesced and
held in abeyance, because so long as thought
proceeds thought will build a self.
Nirvāṇa is the ending of the three poisons, desire,
hatred, error, and the three poisons feed and drive
thought. When they are ended, they no longer are
around to feed and drive thought, and with thought
absent the self is not built.
This side of the Buddha's teaching may offend
business-as-usual interpretations of it, but whilst it is
true that to the awakened the world still proceeds
like before, in himself the awakened has changed and
no longer chases signs and marks and no longer uses
his thought and language to label them. He still has to
reactivate his mentational apparatus in order to live
in the world, but only if he needs to. When he doesn't
need to, his two mentational aggregates, the
notion/idea (the third aggregate) and the compositions
(the fourth aggregate) don't proceed, and when they
don't proceed, thought doesn't proceed. The
numerous meditational techniques of Buddhism
converge on gently quiescing those two aggregates
and gently bringing thought to a complete stop.
What is the kicker is that when thought is gently
brought to a complete stop, business no longer is
as usual. Mother Nature struts out all her charms to
reward the person who can get there, as if to justify
and validate herself. The whole world comes alive,
and it and everything in it shines forth with coherence,
harmony, rightness, justice, beauty, as if to make life
worth living. Everything is seen in perspective and
balance, everything snaps into focus, and everything
is justified and validated just the way it is, everything
is right and perfect just the way it is (and doesn't need
any change or improvement to make it better). That's
some kind of mystical redemption of the world and
oneself, and in Chinese Buddhism it goes under the
name "wonderful existence" (miao-you 妙有). And it's
all in the here and now, not in the next life or whatever.
The Buddha simply calls it "happiness" or some such,
but plenty of Buddhist meditators testify to it. The
sine qua non condition is the gentle quiescing of
thought and the complete holding of it in abeyance.
The Buddha tells the layman Poṭṭhapāda about the
"conscious entry into the gradually obtained complete
cessation of notion (abhisaññā-nirodha, where the
emphatic prefix abhi- qualifies nirodha)." The monk
enters the four form meditations, then the first three
formless places, and in each of the latter he ceases the
notion of the previous stage. In the third formless
place, which the Buddha calls the "summit of notions"
(saññāgga), he thinks: "To mentate at all is bad
(cetayamānassa me pāpiyo), it would be better not to
mentate (acetayamāyum), but other gross ones would
arise (aññā ca olārikā saññā uppajjeyyum). So I will
not mentate and compose (na ceteyyam na
abhisaṅkhareyyam)." So he no longer mentates and
composes, and to him no longer mentating and
composing, the notions cease, and other gross ones
do not arise. So he touches cessation (so nirodhaṃ
phusati). This is how the "conscious entry into the
gradually obtained complete cessation of notion"
(anupubbābhisaññā-nirodha-sampajāna-samāpatti)
comes about. DN, I, 184 (9), Chinese Dīrgha-Āgama,
28, 110b.
So it is by refraining from mentating and composing
that one "touches cessation" (nirodhaṃ phusati),
which is Nirvāṇa.
In the Scripture on the Analysis of the Six Modalities,
at the fourth form meditation, after concentrating on
equanimity, the meditator can reflect: "If I move this
equanimity, purified thus, into the place of infinite
space [and so on for each of the other three formless
attainments] and should develop my thought in
accordance with it, leaning on it, supported by it,
standing on it, taking it as object, attached to it, this
equanimity, purified thus, leaning on the place of
infinite space, is therefore composed (saṅkhataṃ etaṃ).
What is composed is impermanent, what is
impermanent is suffering; if it is suffering, I know
suffering; after knowing suffering, from the
equanimity I do not move into the place of infinite
space." If the monk with regard to the four places
contemplates them with wisdom as they are, he
does not accomplish them, does not move into them.
He therefore neither composes nor wills-mentates
(neva abhisaṅkharoti nābhisañcetayati) for becoming
(bhava) or un-becoming (vibhava). "Am" (asmiti) is a
thought (maññita), "I am this" is a thought, "I will be"
is a thought — the monk thinks: "If there is none of
these thoughts, agitations, etc., the mind is quiesced."
The Pali says: "when he is gone beyond all thoughts,
the sage is said to be at peace" (sabba-maññitānaṃ
tveva samatikkamā muni santo ti vuccati). Chinese
Madhyama-Āgama, 162, 692a, MN, III, 246 (140).
By the way, of the above two texts, the former
concentrates on notion/idea (saññā), the third
aggregate, whilst the latter focusses on volitions and
the compositions, altogether the fourth aggregate. The
implication is that these two aggregates make up the
domain of mentation, and that to quiesce either one is
also to quiesce both, that they implicate each other
and go up and down together.
Thus to get into the absence of thought, one exerts
some efforts, efforts that deactivate thought,
gradually, as thought thins out, until thought stops
(the third aggregate, notion/idea, and the fourth
aggregate, the compositions, stop). What remains is
direct, raw sensation, which is free of thought.
It is non-doing, non-acting. But that is where Mother
Nature jumps in to pull her magic! It's not business
as usual! And one gets there by not doing anything.
Grace comes when one does nothing, especially if one
does nothing to deserve it! That's Mother Nature's trick!
Tang Huyen
Colophon
Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on July 3, 2005, in reply to George Cherry arguing that Buddhism is about "thinking wisely" rather than cessation of thought. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
George Cherry's "business as usual" interpretation of Buddhism — think rightly, believe truly, be calm — is the occasion for Tang Huyen's most canonically precise account of why the Buddha's teaching requires something more radical. The graduated cessation of notion (anupubbābhisaññā-nirodha-sampajāna-samāpatti) from the Poṭṭhapāda Sutta, and the Scripture on the Analysis of the Six Modalities (MN 140) on neither composing nor willing for becoming or un-becoming, are two of the most technically demanding passages in Tang Huyen's corpus. The payoff is the "kicker": the phenomenology of quiesced thought is not emptiness but its opposite — the world redeemed in its own coherence and beauty, miao-you 妙有, what the Chinese Buddhist tradition calls wonderful existence. The two Pāli passages share an asymmetry Tang Huyen notes carefully: one tracks the third aggregate (saññā), the other the fourth (saṅkhāra), but quiescing either quiesces both. Grace as non-doing: Mother Nature's trick.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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