by Tang Huyen

In June 2006, Tang Huyen posted to talk.religion.buddhism in reply to Bill Snyder's claim that the Dalai Lama's teaching is essentially Kantian — phenomena as thought-constructs, the thing-in-itself unknowable. Tang Huyen rejected this as "fundamentally un-Buddhist": Buddhism does not posit an unknowable beyond; it veers close to experience, and what lies beyond experience has no bearing on it. The post uses an extended Hegel critique of Kant as a mirror to clarify what Buddhism does and does not share with transcendental idealism. Companion post to <[email protected]> (329L), written thirty minutes earlier to a different interlocutor in the same thread.

This is fundamentally un-Buddhist. Buddhism veers
close to experience and what is beyond experience
has no bearing to Buddhism.

"'The self, the self (ātma ātmeti),' monks, [thinks]
the foolish common person who follows speech
(prajñaptim anupatito). But there is no self and what
belongs to self there (na catrāsty ātmā nātmīyam vā).
This suffering, arising, arises, this suffering, ceasing,
ceases (duḥkham idaṃ bhikṣavaḥ utpadyamānam
utpadyate, duḥkham idaṃ nirudhyamānam
nirudhyate). Compositions, arising, arise, ceasing,
cease (saṃskāra utpadyamānā utpadyante,
nirudhyamānā nirudhyante)." To follow speech
(prajñaptim anupad-) to chase realities is the cardinal
sin of the Buddha's Buddhism. The Dà zhì dù lùn, T,
25, 1509, 164a18–19 clones the Buddha: "Now on
the basis of the five aggregates there arises the word
'living being' (Candrakīrti, Prasannapadā, 578: pañca
skandhān upādāya prajñāpyamānaḥ pudgalaḥ). The
unwise follow speech to chase realities."

"'All' (sarva), that is the twelve places (dvādaśāyatanāni),
from the eye and forms to the mind and objects-of-mind,
that is how the Tathāgata makes known the all (sarvaṃ
ca prajñāpayati) and the concept of the all
(sarva-prajñaptiṃ ceti). If any recluse and brahman was
to declare: 'this is not the all, I shall revoke it and
declare another all,' that would only be speech
(vāg-vastu-mātram), and if asked one would be unable
to answer, it would increase one's stupidity (sammoham
āpadyeta), for it would be beyond his sense-field
(a-viṣayatvāt).'" SA, 319, 91a, Zitate, 507, SN, IV, 15
(35, 23).

As to thought, the Buddha teaches that in liberation
(Nirvāṇa), one quiesces it so that it does not proceed,
and if one needs to do anything, one has to reactivate
it whilst one needs it but not beyond, and when one
reactivates it, one has critiqued it so that it is
transparent and not opaque, soft and not unyielding,
light and not muddy. Yet all thought whatsoever
never is fully adequate to its referent, assuming that
it has referent. "What and what they think it, it is
otherwise." This is distinctly anti-Platonic. However in
Buddhism, whilst thought and language are never
adequate to their referent, they do not miss
completely their referent, either. Inadequation
between thought and language on one side and their
referent on the other does not equate to total miss,
only to partial miss. If thought and language totally
missed their referents (were totally arbitrary), we
should be unable to communicate and should all die
very quick.

The best way to approach reality is however to drop
all the concepts and theories, all thought and language,
and stay with raw sensation instead. That way, we
experience reality as it is (yathā-bhūtam), not the way
we think it to be (yathā-cetayitam) or the way we
wish it to be (yathā-praṇihitam). That way, we
experience the flow as it really is (without calling it a
flow), without cutting it up and processing the
resulting bits with our language and thought. And that
is Buddhist awakening.

The same world (our daily world), when perceived
with naming and attribution of essence, is delusion,
but when perceived without naming and attribution of
essence, is reality, ultimate reality. But when one
attains to ultimate reality, one does not mentate it
as anything, least of all as ultimate reality! One
simply leaves what one receives in raw sensation as
such, namely as one receives it, and does not lay
any interpretation on top of it. Just that is reality.
But if one subjects it to mentation, to interpretation,
just that is delusion.

Hegel sums up Kant's thought with devastating
accuracy (and even puts it in quotation marks):
"When we deal with the world, thought directs
itself to the outside (for thought, the world given
inside is also an outside); when we deal with it, we
make it phenomenon [indem wir uns an sie
wenden: machen wir sie zur Erscheinung]. It is the
activity of our thought which coats the outside with
so many determinations: the sensible, the
determinations of reflection, etc. [die Thätigkeit
unseres Denkens ist es, die dem Draussen so viel
Bestimmungen anthut: das Sinnliche,
Bestimmungen der Reflexion u. s. f.]. Only our
knowing is phenomenon; the world is in itself
absolutely true [Nur unser Erkennen ist
Erscheinen, die Welt ist an sich, absolut wahrhaft].
It is only our application, our behaviour which ruin
it for us: what we add to it is worthless. The world
thereby becomes only an untrue, on which we
project a mass of determinations [Dadurch wird sie
erst zu einem Unwahren, dass wir an sie eine
Masse von Bestimmungen werfen]." Hegel,
Lectures on the History of Philosophy, ed. H.
Glockner, XIX, 342–343.

Again Hegel says: "all these determinations, from the
beginning in time, etc. do not belong to things in
themselves, to the in-itself itself, which would exist
for itself outside of our subjective thought [das
ausserhalb unseres subjektiven Denkens für sich
existirte]. If such determinations belonged to the
world, to God, to free beings, an objective
contradiction would be present; however this
contradiction is not present in and for itself, but it
belongs only to us: it has its source solely in our
thought [dieser Widerspruch ist aber nicht an und
für sich vorhanden, sondern kommt nur uns zu: er hat
seine Quelle allein in unserm Denken]. Or again, this
transcendental idealism lets subsist contradiction,
except that the in-itself would not thus be
contradictory, but that the contradiction would fall
uniquely in our mind."

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on June 1, 2006, in reply to Bill Snyder's claim that Buddhism and Kantian transcendental idealism share the same structure (phenomena as thought-constructs, the in-itself unknowable). Interlocutor: Bill Snyder. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The post clarifies Buddhism's relationship to European idealism: not a close cousin but a fundamentally different orientation. Kant leaves the thing-in-itself in place as an unknowable horizon; Buddhism dissolves the cognitive apparatus that projects the horizon. The Hegel quotes serve as precise instruments: Hegel shows exactly what Kant does (projects determinations onto the world, then calls the world unknowable), and Tang Huyen uses this to show what Buddhism does instead (drops all determinations and receives raw sensation as such). The SA 319 citation establishes the Buddhist epistemological boundary: "the all" = the twelve places of sense, full stop; any claim to go beyond is "just speech." Companion post written thirty minutes later to Stu: <[email protected]>.

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

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