by Tang Huyen
In March 2007, responding on talk.religion.buddhism to a challenge to show textual evidence that the Buddha was deliberately inconsistent, Tang Huyen offered a systematic account of why the Buddha's teaching contains internal contradictions — and why this is a feature, not a bug.
The key example is the dhammata sequence of AN 10.1-2, where the Buddha asserts that living according to discipline automatically produces a chain of outcomes culminating in liberation. Tang Huyen shows that this optimistic determinism is contradicted by the Buddha's own detailed teaching on the four form meditations (MA 176), where many practitioners reach high meditative states and stop there without progressing to awakening. The sequence is a pedagogical overstatement, not a guarantee.
The essay also revisits the "all is suffering" claim (SN 35:44) and the four seals — showing that both are internally contradicted by the Buddha's own teaching on the four joys of the awakened and the peace of Nirvāṇa. Tang Huyen's conclusion: the Buddha is a Thespian, play-acting in whatever register his audience requires, and the teaching must not be consumed right off the package but must be read critically, with attention to context, levity, and what the rest of the teaching says.
The Buddha to me intentionally gets carried away by the occasion to make a point, even if what he says does not accord with the rest of his teaching. He probably keeps the whole of his teaching in mind in adapting it to the various occasions, but doesn't mind bending it out of shape for the occasions, to drive a point home. He occasionally blows a point out of all proportions and therefore makes it contradict the rest of his teaching, but not in malice.
The Dhammata Sequence
The Buddha says:
"Ananda, for one who lives according to discipline, there is no need to make the volition (na cetanāya kāraṇīyam): May freedom from remorse arise in me! This, Ananda, is in accordance with the nature of things (dhammatā) that for one who lives according to discipline, freedom from remorse arises. ... joy ... rapture ... my body be calmed ... I feel happiness ... my mind is concentrated ... I know and see things as they really are ... I feel dispassion ... I am without attachment ... I am liberated ... Ananda, on account of living according to discipline one gets freedom from remorse, from freedom from remorse one gets joy ... rapture ... calming of body ... happiness ... concentration of mind ... The well-taught disciple who has concentration of mind then gains knowledge and vision of things as they really are ... dispassion ... without attachment ... liberation ... On account of liberation he knows that he is liberated, he knows really that birth has been exhausted, the chaste life has been lived, what has to be done has been done, there is no more becoming. Ananda, event-states (dhamma) flow (abhisandenti) into one another, event-states (dhamma) fulfil (paripurenti) one another, from living in discipline to arriving at the ultimate, namely, for the going from the not-beyond to the beyond!" — AN V.2 (10, 1), 3-4 (10, 2), MA 42, 485b, 43, 485c, SA 810, 208c; Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T 32, 1646, 277a7-12; quoted by Candrakīrti, see Scherrer-Schaub, Yuktisāṣṭikāvr̥tti, 125, n. 70.
This famous text gives an optimistic look on the sequence of event-states that can be expected by engaging on the Buddhist path. But if you read it carefully, it falls apart fast. For one of the links here is concentration of mind, and the Buddha elsewhere lists the four form meditations as members of Right Concentration, one of the eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path.
Yet the four form meditations don't automatically produce awakening, and even they and the four formless attainments together still don't automatically produce awakening. They can help, for sure, but they are not sufficient by themselves, and can even hinder the path. It is well-known that many meditators find delight in them, linger in them and don't progress further, so that their attainments are purely worldly.
The Four Ways of Dealing with Meditative States
In each of the four form meditations and the first three formless attainments, the meditator has four ways of dealing with it. The first is not to attach to its characteristic (ākāra), not to pay attention to its particularity (liṃga) and its sign (nimitta), but only to indulge in thoughts of the previous stage, with a view to falling back to it. The second is to attach to its characteristic, to pay attention to its particularity and its sign, and not to indulge in thoughts of the previous stage, with a view to remaining in the present one. The third is not to attach to its characteristic, not to pay attention to its particularity and its sign, but to indulge in thoughts of the next higher stage, with a view to climbing to it. The fourth is not to attach to its characteristic, not to pay attention to its particularity and its sign, but to indulge in thoughts of cessation (nirodha) as quiescent (śāntatāḥ), with a view to dispassion. The monk thinks: "I practice this method, not falling back (Pali and Skt. hāna), not remaining in it (ṭhiti, Skt. sthiti), not advancing (viśeṣa, Skt. viśeṣa), but I practice this method so that it enables me to become dispassionate (= nibbedha, Skt. nirvedha)." MA 176, 716b-718b.
The point is that one can well get to the concentration of mind — roughly the four form meditations and the four formless attainments, also the four divine abodes — but get stuck there and not advance further on the optimistic "nature of things" (dhammatā) sequence. And one can fall back, also. So getting to the concentration of mind doesn't guarantee anything. And yet the Buddha asserts on this occasion an automatic sequence of an optimistic outcome, when such an outcome is not at all guaranteed by the rest of his teaching.
The Contradictions Within the Four Seals
Another scripture, on "all is duḥkha," from the Samyutta-Nikāya 35:44:
"And what is the all that is duḥkha?
The eye is duḥkha, forms are duḥkha, eye-consciousness is duḥkha, eye-contact is duḥkha, whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition is duḥkha. The ear is duḥkha, etc. The tongue is duḥkha, etc. The body is duḥkha, etc. The mind (mano) is duḥkha, etc. Seeing thus, the instructed noble disciple experiences disenchantment towards the eye ... towards the mind ... Experiencing disenchantment, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion his mind is liberated."
This scripture contradicts the rest of the Buddha's teaching.
Duḥkha is not inherent in conditioned thing-events, us included, because some people (the awakened) can feel joy or happiness or pleasure (sukha) in the very same world, right next to the people (the deluded) who feel suffering or pain (duḥkha). To the former, the same world is Nirvāṇa, whilst to the latter, it is Saṃsāra, and the only difference is in the way they deal with that self-same world. The matter is intact, only the manner changes.
It also contradicts the four seals as given in the Chinese Conjoined Āgama (Saṃyukta-Āgama, 66b14, 66c7, 66c21):
- All the compositions are impermanent.
- All the compositions are suffering.
- All the thing-events are without self. (Notice the switch from the compositions to thing-events, dharma-s, which include Nirvāṇa.)
- Nirvāṇa is peaceful. (It happens in this life.)
Nirvāṇa is peaceful, and the Buddha talks of the joy of the awakened. For the awakened while in life, the Buddha speaks of the four joys: joy of desirelessness, joy of aloofness, joy of calm, joy of awakening (nekkhama-sukha, paviveka-sukha, upasama-sukha, sambodha-sukha). MA 191, 738a; SA 485, 124b; MN I.454 (66), III.110 (140); Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T 32, 1646, 353c1-2.
"Monks! Joy (pīti) arises in a monk who, having extinguished the cankers (khīṇāsava), reflects on the mind liberated from desire, reflects on the mind liberated from hatred, reflects on the mind liberated from delusion." — SN IV.236 (36, 29).
Clearly, not all is suffering. The Buddha's teaching is replete with suchlike contradictions. And these contradictions are internal to his teaching.
The Thespian
You have to figure out what is meant and what is not meant. It doesn't come ready for consumption right off.
At the very least, existential quantifiers like "all" have to be taken lightly, with humour and levity (as is the rest of the Buddha's teaching, anyway).
So the Buddha is a Thespian who play-acts a fake acceptation ("nod nod wink wink" style) of the myths and legends of his Indian milieu to play up his message. He plays along with whatever manner of speech his Indian audience is familiar with in order to reach it and pass his message to it, stealthily if needs be. Literal truth matters little, if at all.
As I say, there is no truth to truth, otherwise truth would be encumbered with truth. The awakeneds are free of norms and standards, including those that they proclaim to others.
Colophon
Originally posted to talk.religion.buddhism, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.zen, and alt.buddha.short.fat.guy by Tang Huyen, March 4, 2007. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
This post is Tang Huyen's most direct engagement with the question of whether the Buddha's teaching is internally consistent. His answer: no, deliberately so, and for good reasons. The key texts are the dhammata sequence (AN 10.1-2) and its implied contradiction by the four-way framework for dealing with meditative states (MA 176) — the former promises an automatic chain to liberation, the latter shows how easily practitioners stall at samadhi. The "all is suffering" claim (SN 35:44) is set against the four joys of the awakened and the four seals' own affirmation that Nirvāṇa is peaceful. The image of the Buddha as Thespian — adapting register to audience, sometimes overstating, always pointing beyond the text — is one of Tang Huyen's most characteristic and useful analytical frames.
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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