by Tang Huyen
The Dalai Lama has said that if Buddhism conflicts with science, Buddhism would need to modify itself. Tang Huyen finds this claim problematic at the root: Buddhism and science are not studying the same thing from opposite poles — they are oriented in opposite directions entirely. Science accumulates knowledge of what is measurable; Buddhism deliberately aims at the dropping of conventional knowledge. Science wants to know more; Buddhist practitioners want to know less. This essay, written for talk.religion.buddhism in September 2006, draws out the contrast across three traditions — Buddhism, modern science, and theistic religion — and arrives at the Buddhist instrumentalist view: every teaching, including Dependent Arisal itself, is a raft to be abandoned once it has done its job.
Science studies what is measurable and repeatable, especially what can be fitted into mathematical formula, and therefore does not, cannot study all of reality — but only what is measurable and repeatable. Its very constitution forbids it from wandering outside that sphere. Buddhism studies suffering and the ending of suffering, which is (when it works) at best anecdotal and very hard to measure, even harder to replicate, not to mention fittable into mathematical formula. Science wants to be objective, whereas Buddhism deals with the subjective. On top of that, the people most qualified to be studied in Buddhism — the awakeneds — are outside of norms and standards and presumably most reluctant to be subjected to measurements.
Buddhism does not deal with all of reality. It does not even deal with reality in many of its methods (dharma) for ending suffering, for many such methods have nothing to do with reality but only with breaking the hold of present patterns of behaviour that create suffering — and such breaking can involve methods that are wholly imaginary and not at all realistic. For example, the contemplation of the universe as a skeleton in the contemplation of the unclean. Even the famous or infamous "public cases" in Chan are purely imaginary and have nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
Science Accumulates; Buddhism Drops
Buddhism in its strictest form is a practical method to end suffering, not a theory of reality. It may broach the topic of what is real and unreal, but such discussion is purely pragmatic and didactic, and is never offered as final, definitive, and ultimate — never the last word, period. Even if factually true, a teaching is still only a means to an end, and the end is to calm thought completely, to bring about the end of suffering. Once this end is reached, all theoretical issues become moot; they have been dropped, including whatever method was used to bring about that end.
Moreover, the effectiveness of a method (dharma) has nothing to do with its factual truth. The contemplation of the unclean is one instance where the object of contemplation is unreal: one contemplates, for example, the whole world as a skeleton. The whole world is not a skeleton — but one contemplates it as a skeleton in order to cut lust. It may or may not work, and it is well-known that people can kill themselves in this kind of apparently morbid contemplation, but it does work for some people. If it works, it works. When it works, it merely works, and needs not imply anything about its factual truth beyond its working.
Science is an accumulation of knowledge, even if new theories have a way of making previous theories obsolete. Buddhism is a body of knowledge about suffering and its ending — but such knowledge has to be reinvented with any new generation, and even with any new practitioner. Moreover, such practice deliberately aims at the dropping of conventional knowledge, not any accumulation of it. The scientists aim at knowing more; the Buddhist practitioners at knowing less.
Reality Behaves Legally
That said, it is unquestionable that there is a reality out there and in here, which often frustrates and fails our wishes and desires. It exists independently of our mind, and our mind can scarcely bend it to its wishes and desires:
"When a monk does not dwell devoted to cultivation (bhavana), even though such a wish as this might arise in him: 'Oh, that my mind might be liberated from the cankers by non-clinging!' — yet his mind is not liberated from the cankers by non-clinging. For what reason? It should be said: because of lack of cultivation (a-bhavitatta)." (SN III.153 / 22.101)
"Form is not-self. If form was self, this form would not lead to affliction, and it could be had of form: Let my form be thus, let my form not be thus. And because form is not-self, it therefore leads to affliction, and it cannot be had of form: Let my form be thus, let my form not be thus." (SN III.66 / 22.59)
Reality behaves in an expectable manner — a legal manner — and this legality is what makes our reliance on reality a good, though not perfect, bet. This legality is summarised in Dependent Arisal. This scheme of legality, according to the Buddha, governs the world, serves as the bulwark of expectability, and exists independently of his discovering it:
"The Dependent Arisal has not been made by me (na maya pratitya-samutpadah krto), has not been made by others (napy anyaih). Whether the Tathagatas were to arise or were not to arise (utpadad va tathagatanam anutpadad va), this nature of things has remained (sthita eveyam dharmata), the modality (dhatu) for the standing of things (dharma-sthitaye)." (SA 299, 85b; Nidana-samyukta, 164–165; Dà zhì dù lùn, T.25.1509, 298a)
The Raft
However, the theory of Dependent Arisal suffers the same fate as all teachings in Buddhism, theoretical and practical: it is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, and the end served by it is the ending of suffering. The Buddha likened all teachings in Buddhism to a raft, which can help one cross from this shore of suffering to the other shore of the ending of suffering — but is to be forsaken once it has done its job and not held on to forever (because if held on to forever, one would still cause suffering to oneself by attachment to it, and it would not have done its purported job).
Thus whether Dependent Arisal is merely a construction of the Buddha or something that exists independently of him is of no importance, if it does its job of helping one cross over. Its ontological status is moot. It is merely a tool, a temporary tool, and is not anything ultimate, existing in itself.
Three Orientations
This instrumentalist view in Buddhism contrasts sharply with the common view of the history of salvation in the theistic religions, where God laid his Law down in Word, and in order to be redeemed his creatures have to believe in his Word — in the doctrinal content of his Revelation. Practice is in addition to content, on top of content, and content is valid always and forever on its own side, even after the fullness of time, when the saved are already saved forever and the damned are already damned forever.
Buddhism, science, and theism thus face in opposite directions. Science: accumulate correct knowledge of the measurable. Theism: believe in the Word and act accordingly — both knowledge and practice are mandatory and permanent. Buddhism: use any method (real or imaginary, true or not) that works to end suffering, then drop it.
Aggregates as Temporary Tools
As to the classification of the five aggregates, the six sense-fields, the six sense-organs, the six sense-consciousnesses, the eighteen modalities (dhatu), etc.: experience is whole and unitary, though fully differentiated, but is cut up into such classifications only as a temporary means of concentrating the mind and making the mind workable. Such classifications — and any cutting-up of experience into whatever scheme — are never going to be wholly adequate to reality, but merely serviceable at best. In Buddhism they serve only as a temporary means to enable further work along the line of the contemplation of impermanence, suffering, the absence of self (an-atman).
This cultivation aims at calming the mind and at penetrating and dropping the delusions that we feed ourselves — the self (atman) and what-belongs-to-self, the "I" and "mine." When thought has been quiesced and no longer proceeds, one no longer creates a self and what-belongs-to-self to carry around. The self and what-belongs-to-self are fictitious, composed, made up, mentated (German: gedacht) and not real. When one has quiesced one's thought and no longer creates a self and what-belongs-to-self to carry around — just that is Nirvana.
Colophon
Written by Tang Huyen and posted to alt.philosophy.zen, alt.zen, and talk.religion.buddhism on 5 September 2006. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
Tang Huyen was a regular contributor to Buddhist Usenet groups through the 2000s, distinguished by rigorous citation of Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese canonical sources alongside Western scholarship. This essay was his response to a claim that Buddhism and science are both engaged in the study of all reality. His counter-argument — that they are oriented in opposite directions, toward opposite ends, by opposite means — distils the Buddhist instrumentalist position with unusual clarity.
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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