by Tang Huyen

"Buddhist cultivation is not based on factual truth, like a tree and what it is, but on merely subjective, purely sentimental reactions to what we experience, like desire, fear, delusion, etc. It is in the realm of values and meanings, not in the realm of facts."

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. Of course the whole world is not a skeleton, but one contemplates it as a skeleton, in order to cut lust. Now 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, that is, it helps them end their suffering.

So to contemplate the tears that one has shed in past lives may or may not help one end one's suffering, but even if it works, it needs not muster any factual truth to it. If it works, it works. When it works, it merely works (it only appears to appear), and needs not imply anything about its factual truth, beyond its working.

The people who revolt against Christianity often turn objectivist and allege that the Buddha teaches us to see things as they are, but when the Buddha uses that phrase "to see ___ as it is", he only refers to existential items, not to physical things, like a tree. The existential items that he refers to by way of that phrase are like suffering, the cause of suffering, birth, death, arisal, cessation, etc., all of which are what we experience that has something to do with suffering and the ending of suffering, not objective, physical things like a tree. Objective, physical things like a tree scarcely have anything to do with our suffering and our ending of suffering.

Buddhist cultivation is not based on factual truth, like a tree and what it is, but on merely subjective, purely sentimental reactions to what we experience, like desire, fear, delusion, etc. It is in the realm of values and meanings, not in the realm of facts. The realm of facts remains the same before and after awakening, and only the attitude of the cultivators has changed, and this change is purely subjective and strictly sentimental.

So in Buddhist cultivation, something like pious untruths can be used to reach the ending of suffering, even if it has scarcely any factual truth to it, and conversely, something that has factual truth to it can well have no relevance, because we are dealing with suffering and the ending of suffering, which are subjective, sentimental states, not with something objective and physical, like a tree. If it works, it works. When it works, it merely works (it only appears to appear), and needs not imply anything about its factual truth, beyond its working.

The contemplation of a public case is definitely not about something real, yet it can work, for some people, and if it works, it works. Nothing more should be demanded.

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 that it therefore leads to affliction, and that it cannot be had of form: Let my form be thus, let my form not be thus." (SN, III, 66; 22, 59)

Reality (which includes our mind) behaves in an expectable manner, in 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 to the Buddha governs the world, serves as the bulwark of expectability (what can happen in the world) and exists independent of his discovering it.

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 7 September 2008, in the "gendo — a way of language" thread. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A foundational clarification of TH's position on Buddhist epistemology. The phrase "to see things as they are" is widely invoked as a definition of mindfulness or insight; TH isolates its actual referent in the early canon — existential items related to suffering and its cessation, not empirical objects. This makes Buddhist cultivation irreducibly sentimental (in the philosophical sense: concerned with felt states, values, meanings) rather than scientific or objectivist. The two Saṃyutta Nikāya passages anchor the argument: the first establishes that mental liberation requires cultivation (not just wishing), the second that form's not-self nature is precisely what makes it lead to affliction — it does not obey our wishes. Read alongside "Re: Pious Untruth" (September 2008) which extends this analysis into the Mahayana critique of the Three Marks.

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

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