by Tang Huyen

"The real is exactly what is free from the logical, conceptual, aesthetic, moral judgement. It is what resists and fails our logical, conceptual, aesthetic, moral judgement."

The "eye does not see itself" is an analogy, and it says that structure
A is like structure B, therefore what is valid for A is valid for B. But
it is based on mere words, and mere words that are themselves
metaphors. To see with the mind is a metaphor, as the eye sees, and
one borrows that word to use with the mind, and then adds on top of
that (goes on with the metaphor) furthermore the analogy that the
mind does not see itself in Nirvana, just as the eye does not see itself.
That the eye does not see itself is due to its physical structure, but the
mind routinely turns around to be aware of itself, and this act belongs
to the mental realm. Mindfulness would be impossible without this
turning back of consciousness to be conscious of itself. It can be that
for some people the simple, non-reflective functioning of mind is more
pleasurable, but for some others the turning back of consciousness to
be conscious of itself is highly powerful in view of awakening, in full
or in part, therefore also productive of pleasure. The question may be
relevant, as to how many layers of turning back of consciousness on
itself can be achieved, and what number may be most productive (the
optimal number). Another question may also be relevant, in that for
the people who are good at turning their consciousness back on itself,
whether they use that technique all the time during their cultivation,
including its acme, or abandon it when they reach a certain threshold,
especially at the top of their cultivation, say, Nirvana or the Dao.
Does a mind in Nirvana or the Dao still turn around to be aware of
itself? Those questions are beyond my capacity.

It is certain that the Indian Buddhists deploy the complexity of
Sanskrit (a language that I know primitively) to argue the analogy. In
a work "Refutation of a Creator-God" attributed to Nagarjuna, there
is: The blade of a sword, howevermuch sharp it may be, cannot cut
itself. Even the most expert dancer, howevermuch skilful he may be,
cannot dance standing on his own shoulders — see Harish C. Gupta,
tr., Papers of Th. Stcherbatsky, Calcutta: Indian Studies Past and
Present, 1969, 11; also George Chemrapathy, Two Early Buddhist
Refutations of the Existence of Isvara as the Creator of the Universe,
Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiasiens, 1968–1969,
96; a similar passage in Bendall, ed., Siksa-samuccaya, 235: As a knife
cannot cut itself, as the fingertip cannot touch itself, so the mind
cannot see itself.

The analogy is weak in its proving power, and is adopted only for the
people who already have a bias in the issue, here the mind not seeing
itself. To those whose mind is adept at seeing itself, it has no proving
power at all, because they know in real life (in practice) that it is not so.

This issue shows the danger of using a priori analysis to argue the
possibility or impossibility of a posteriori practice. One obvious topic
is the use of effort to reach effortlessness, as it is logically
counterintuitive to use something to attain to its contrary. But they
are contraries in conceptual analysis and not contraries in real-life
practice. Poison can cure poison (heh, it is analogy there). It all
depends on reality, which is encountered and accumulated in experience,
not on logical or conceptual analysis. There are those who are
susceptible to jumping on logical or conceptual analysis (which is
based on mere words) to adjudge of the possibility or impossibility of
certain practices, but that is to confuse realms, the realm of the a
priori and the realm of the a posteriori. The refusal to induce from
the logical-ideal (including the aesthetic and moral judgement) to the
real is the basis of Buddhism.

The real is exactly what is free from the logical, conceptual, aesthetic,
moral judgement. It is what resists and fails our logical, conceptual,
aesthetic, moral judgement. It is what we encounter when we abandon
our logical, conceptual, aesthetic, moral judgement. It is free of norms
and standards.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 4 March 2008, in the thread "Eye-popping analogy (was Re: Room for loose talk, room for freedom)," in reply to Awaken21 citing the Chan aphorism "The eye does not see itself." Author: Tang Huyen. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A two-stage refutation. The first stage is empirical: the mind does turn back on itself, and mindfulness — the central Buddhist meditation practice — depends on exactly this capacity. The second stage is philosophical: a priori analysis of what is conceptually possible or impossible cannot adjudge what is possible in a posteriori practice. TH anchors the point with the Nagarjuna sword/blade passage from Stcherbatsky and Bendall, then turns it: those citations have no proving power for someone who already knows by practice that the mind sees itself. The post closes with TH's characteristic formulation: the real is precisely what escapes conceptual analysis — which is why you cannot argue your way to it.

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

🌲