by Tang Huyen

"Nirvana and Samsara are par excellence feelings of life and not states of things. Contrariwise if they were states of things, we should have to change the world to awaken, but fortunately they are only feelings of life and we have only to change our attitude to awaken."

The reality that we receive in sensation is not in and of itself the problem, but only what we layer on it — associations and memories, recognition, and finally fabrications.

That is where the Great Vehicle, especially the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures, harps upon in reaction against some erroneous interpretations of the early canon. To view what happens in terms of something is squarely in the realm of values and meanings, and this fact should come clear when some examples are provided: to view what happens in terms of God's creation, or to view what happens in terms of mere matter. That sensation should be viewed in terms of the four noble truths, or by extension, the three characteristics, is also squarely in the realm of values and meanings. When the Buddha tells Bahiya: "In the seen there will be just the seen", he excludes all such considerations. But even then, to follow the Buddha's instruction to Bahiya and to stay merely with the seen in the seen is also squarely in the realm of values and meanings, even if one abstains from values and meanings, because one is not dealing with facts but with one's reactions to facts, one is dealing with one's purely subjective, strictly sentimental reactions to what one experiences, like desire, fear, delusion, etc. (even if one tries to abstain from desire, fear, delusion, etc.).

What the Great Vehicle, especially the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures, reacts against in the pushing of the four Noble Truths and the three characteristics on what happens is that it is interpretation and not sensation. As interpretation, it can help with the ending of suffering, but it is part of the Raft and should be abandoned when the other shore is reached. More specifically, the awakeneds do not perceive impermanence and such, but only perceive sensation ("In the seen there will be just the seen"). The four Noble Truths and the three characteristics are means to an end (more specifically, means to the ending of suffering), not the end in itself. The end itself does not include them.

Nirvana is said to be peaceful, blissful, safe, etc., and all such adjectives concern values and meanings, though they are sensible values and meanings rather than intellective ones. Now reverse those and you'll see that they are values and meanings, though now they belong to Samsara.

As to the rearrangement of values and meanings: the four perversions are to take what is impermanent for permanent, etc. So Buddhist training is to reverse the four perversions, etc. A clear case of rearrangement of values and meanings. In awakening, both sets are abandoned (this includes the "good" set — impermanent, etc.). The point is that if one takes things to be impermanent, etc., one is still in training. That is where the Great Vehicle, especially the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures, reacts against some erroneous interpretations of the early canon. The three marks are not objective qualities inherent in things, but interpretations, thought-up interpretations. They do not exist in sensation.

In the early canon, there are innumerable instances where everything is bubbling up and expiring, and the cultivator, observing such bubbling up and expiring, frees himself from attachment to them (and not from them per se). This includes Nirvana, which also bubbles up and expires, from moment to moment. Therefore bubbling up and expiring do not by themselves lead to suffering, but only attachment to what bubbles up and expires does. Bubbling up and expiring belong to what happens, and only our subjective, sentimental dealing with them decides whether suffering ensues or not, as suffering is purely optional. That part is our margin of freedom.

Contrariwise, if you take something to escape the bubbling up and expiring, you have fallen into the heresy of permanence. Nirvana is not an escape from bubbling up and expiring, but is merely the abstention from laying the interpretative layer on top of sensation.

What I call purely subjective, strictly sentimental is what Kant and Carnap call Lebensgefühl. To Carnap, metaphysical propositions (which are pseudo-propositions to him) do not represent states of things, but only express the feeling of life. Nirvana and Samsara are par excellence feelings of life and not states of things. Contrariwise if they were states of things, we should have to change the world to awaken, but fortunately they are only feelings of life and we have only to change our attitude to awaken.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 9 September 2008, in the "Pious untruth" thread. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

TH here draws on Carnap's distinction between cognitively meaningful propositions (which make factual claims) and pseudo-propositions (which express Lebensgefühl — feeling of life). For Carnap this was a critique of metaphysics; for TH it becomes the positive philosophical underpinning of Buddhist soteriology: Nirvana and Samsara, being feelings of life rather than states of things, are accessible through attitude-change alone. The Mahayana move is also precise: the Great Vehicle does not abandon the Four Noble Truths or the Three Marks but relocates them as provisional — part of the Raft to be discarded at the far shore. This post is the deepest formulation of TH's "subjective and sentimental" thesis, which he returns to across dozens of posts. Read alongside "Pious Untruth" (September 2008) and "The Perfect Box" (July 2008).

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

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