by Tang Huyen

In serenity and grace, all is fluff, and all is grace.

On 23 August 2003, naked_ape (Jim Hallas) quoted Eric Fromm: "The aim of Zen is enlightenment: the immediate, unreflected grasp of reality, without affective contamination and intellectualization, the realization of the relation of myself to the universe."

As I have said for some time, there is a reality that often resists our wishes and desires and that often fails them, yet in awakening such a reality does not count for much, but what counts is our coming to peace with ourselves, our reconnecting with ourselves, our reconciliation with ourselves. In awakening we do not quite adjust to any reality and aline with any reality, but merely adjust to ourselves and aline with ourselves, and once we do so, whatever reality there is will be automatically adjusted to and alined with. If we do not adjust to ourselves and aline with ourselves, we shall fail to adjust to any reality and aline with any reality. But if we adjust to ourselves and aline with ourselves, reality as such becomes moot. Not that it is out of the circuit, but that once we come to peace with ourselves, we also automatically come to peace with the world, and be it reality or unreality, we can cope either way. Even if it only appears to appear, we can cope.

I also say that in awakening we adjust to what we do not know and aline with what we do not know. In coming to peace with ourselves, we do not really know ourselves, but we make peace with what we don't know. What is essential is the coming to peace with ourselves, whatever and whoever we are or are not. We cannot pin down what and who we are, but that doesn't prevent us from coming to peace with ourselves. Such fuzziness and slipperiness are all right, even if they concern us as such. We can live with them, and with us as mediated by them. Ambiguity is fine, even as it permeates us through and through.

In serenity and grace, all is fluff, and all is grace. Whether the self is present or not, it is fluff and its absence is fluff, and it is grace and its absence is grace. The exact content of what happens matters little, what matters is that it is all right with us, regardless what it is or is not.

"If you're frightened of dying and holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth." — Jacob's Ladder, dir. Adrian Lyne, script by Bruce Joel Rubin (1990).

Le Roi se meurt (Exit the King) is an absurdist drama by Eugène Ionesco that is Buddhist to the core. I highly recommend it. It comes as close to Buddhist awakening as any piece of literature can. It never mentions Buddhism.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on April 6, 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 pivots on a structural asymmetry: awakening does not require adjustment to outer reality — it requires only adjustment to oneself. Once inner reconciliation is achieved, the world follows. The corollary, which TH presses hard, is that even fuzziness and ambiguity about who one is need not be resolved before peace is possible. "In serenity and grace, all is fluff, and all is grace" is one of his most concise summations of the Buddhist dissolution of the self-problem.

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

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