by Tang Huyen

"The more one goes in that direction, the more Mother Nature rewards one with grace unasked. That is the Contract of Nature. Less is more. Nothing is salvation."

Buddhism came about from that experience of the Buddha that night.
He had been devoting six years to the extreme, unforgiving
self-mortification and self-starvation of Jaina asceticism, by which
the atoms (prakṛti) of deed (karman) that are material have to be
purged from the body by ascetic practice (tapas, heat). He was just a
few days from success (death by exhaustion and starvation) when he
realised that it had been a huge error (that was his first awakening).
He relented, took milk, regained some strength, relaxed all the way,
gave up on thought and volition (especially the volition to beat up on
himself and beat down nature, his own nature, by sheer will), came
to peace with himself (as opposed to the utter self-oppression and
self-suppression, even self-annihilation of the previous six years), and
awoke. Technically he calmed the compositions (the fourth aggregate)
all the way, which is how he defined Nirvāṇa (the complete calming of
the compositions), and that was his second awakening. But it was merely
a flourish on top of his first awakening, a house-cleaning to clean up the
loose ends. The lesson that he learnt was that all that matters is how one
takes oneself and the world (the manner), not the actual content of what
one faces (the matter). The matter can be whatever it wants, and one
has scarcely control over it, but if one is at peace with oneself, all can
be forgiven, and not just forgiven, but accepted with joy. This is purely
a matter of attitude, a purely subjective, strictly sentimental attitude
that has no objective counterpart, nothing to do with being or non-being,
existence or non-existence, necessity or contingency, good or evil (all
those issues are bypassed during cultivation, and left behind during and
after awakening), but it is the only thing that is under one's control.
The Stoics say that nothing is under one's control (literally, up to us),
except one's volition, by which they mean one's inner attitude, which is
the way one deals with oneself and the world, and this is intangible and
the je-ne-sais-quoi that lays down the tone for one's existential state,
and that spreads itself further and further in one's life, regardless of the
actual circumstances that one faces. The actual circumstances that one
faces matter vastly less than this existential attitude, and if this
existential attitude is all right, all else can be accepted.

Most mystics in the Bookist traditions are actually Stoics who adapt
Stoicism (under its Neoplatonic camouflage) to Bookist talk (therefore
their talk is a camouflage of a camouflage), though it doesn't take much
ingenuity to figure out the Stoic teaching underneath Bookist
window-dressing, and as adapted to Bookist terminology, the Stoic
teaching goes something like what Eckhart and Fénelon say. Empty
yourself out to leave room for God to come in, put aside your
self-interests to let God take hold of you, give up your will and surrender
to God. The stated doctrine (negative theology borrowed from Plotinus
and Porphyry, two ardent pagan mystics) is that God is unknown and
unknowable, but what really happens is that given that God is unknown
and unknowable, one can only open up to him without knowing him and
therefore without knowing what it is that one opens up to, one merely
opens up and leaves it at that (the "it" is all the mystery!). Salvation
requires the dropping of one's boxes and the opening up without
conditions, especially conditions about what it is that one opens up to.

If one knows ahead of time what it is that one opens up to (e.g., the
image that one forms about the Bookist God), one is closed and not open,
one puts up conditions for God, one imposes oneself on God, and God is
unlikely to take such arrogance and presumption nicely. Better to make
oneself small, to leave all the room to God, and let him make whatever
he wants of himself. That way he is more likely to come to one, and one
is fully open to him, whatever the form or absence of form that he wants
to take. That much is left up to him, one only opens oneself up to him
without conditions and without prior presumption about what he can be
or not be.

The irony is that if one opens oneself up that way, the God that one
opens up to becomes fungible, because one merely opens up, and God
serves only as a place-holder, as what happens when one opens up.
Since one puts up no box in front of God, one merely opens oneself,
without further ado, and whatever happens after that is God, without
further ado. There is no specification (form, sign, characteristic) to
God, but only the openness from one's own side.

Kant uses two sayings in Latin which pretty much summarise Buddhism.
One is dari, non intelligi, "given but not intelligised." We are thrown
into life, and attempt to, not just survive, but also make it intelligible
to us, make it make sense to us, and we build up fancy mental structures
to justify ourselves to ourselves and validate ourselves to ourselves —
to weave a story that we can live with. The inconvenience is that such
mental structures overshoot their target, become hypertrophied and
dwarf us. Instead of serving us, they become ends in themselves and
use us as mere excuse. Buddhism teaches us how to put them back in
their place, so that they become good servants rather than bad masters.
When they are not needed, we want the sensible input to be merely
given and not intelligised.

The other expression in Latin that Kant uses is sustine et abstine,
"bear it and abstain yourself." This is Stoic. It is not necessarily
resignation, but a positive attitude, of opening oneself up to what
happens and abstaining from messing with it. The moment one so does,
what happens transmutes into grace unasked. That's how Mother Nature
justifies and validates herself. I don't know what Buddhist insight is,
because I haven't experienced it, but if I was to venture a guess, that
would be it.

With these two Latin expressions, one opens oneself up in pure
end-consumption, without attempting to figure out how and why what is
being consumed is brought about, even less to make sense of it, but
merely receives it and accepts it in utter humility and surrender, as if
God himself is manifesting himself to one in full in it (not through it,
but in it). When one so does, grace comes to fill one up unasked.

In such an atmosphere, issues of being or non-being, existence or
non-existence, necessity or contingency, good or evil do not matter.
They do not impinge on one's consciousness and do not perturb one's
peace.

Contrariwise, if one still tortures oneself about issues of being or
non-being, existence or non-existence, necessity or contingency, good
or evil, one has failed in one's Buddhist practice.

Stoic, Daoist and Buddhist cultivation all aims at doing nothing, or
non-doing (an-abhisaṃskāra, wu-wei), non-thinking
(an-abhisaṃcetanā). In Daoism it is said: doing nothing, yet there
is nothing that doesn't get done (wu wei er wu bu wei). One vacates
oneself, empties oneself out and lets the situation act one. The more
one goes in that direction, the more Mother Nature (dharmāta) rewards
one with grace unasked. That is the Contract of Nature (dharmāta).
At the other end, the more one busies oneself with doings, the more one
fritters oneself away, in pain and misery. And everything is free,
everything is voluntary. If one gives up volition and surrenders to what
happens, one doesn't know what happens, but what happens will take
care of one. Less is more. Nothing is salvation.

In Buddhism, it is said that "All support is unsupported," "All foundation
is unfounded," "All basis is baseless," "All establishment is
unestablished," "All ground is groundless," "All bottom is bottomless."
One drops everything and walks free. It takes nothing and leaves
nothing. There is no truth to truth, otherwise truth would be
encumbered with truth.

But don't bother. It's all made up, it's all fluff, better just relax and
be serene.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 22 December 2007, in the thread "Paul Williams," in reply to Rahula quoting from Paul Williams' account of why he left Buddhism for Catholicism — in particular Williams' argument that Buddhism cannot answer "why is there something rather than nothing" and that only a necessarily existent God fills that gap. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

TH's response bypasses the contingency argument entirely: the question of why there is something rather than nothing is, for Buddhism, one of the issues that cultivation bypasses and awakening leaves behind. The post then moves through the Buddha's twofold awakening (from Jaina self-mortification to the calming of the compositions), the convergence of Stoicism and Buddhist negative theology in the mystics (Eckhart, Fénelon as Stoics in Bookist dress), and two Kantian sayings that TH takes to "pretty much summarise Buddhism": dari non intelligi (given but not intelligised) and sustine et abstine (bear it and abstain yourself). The convergence of wu-wei, the Stoic reserve, and Eckhart's self-emptying is named the Contract of Nature. The closing — "Nothing is salvation" — is TH's most compressed statement of the teaching. Read alongside "Blocking God by Hubris" (<[email protected]>) for the full comparative theology.

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

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