by Tang Huyen

Buddhist doctrine is only in view of its own dissolution and disposal, when it has done its job. It is mere means, and mere means to an end, the ending of suffering, and never an end in itself.

I don't know whether my reply fits your question, but I'll list a few misconceptions that many Buddhists entertain about Buddhism.

In the theistic religions, God tells the world — his creation — of the history of salvation. He has created the world and with it his history of salvation in Word and by Word, and his history of creation and of salvation is true now and true forever more, even after the fullness of time, that is, after the history of salvation has been fully traversed and realised. The faithful refer all their acts and thoughts to him, even after their salvation, which is eternal and irreversible. They haven't to worry about it, especially about losing it, yet they still converge their acts and thoughts on God.

In Buddhism, the Law (Dharma) discovered and taught by the Buddha is a mere Raft, to ferry one from suffering to happiness, and once it has done its job, it should be discarded — otherwise it would not have done its job, for it would still be an albatross hanging on one's neck. The awakened does not mentate the Law, does not mentate the self, does not mentate the world, does not mentate anything. He is still governed by the laws of the physical and social world, but is free of them in the sense that he does not mentate them, does not carry them around. He empties himself out and lets the situation act him.

The misconception that many Buddhists entertain with regard to the above point is that they charge in and believe in content — for example rebirth, cosmology and deed (karman) and its return — just like the content of the history of salvation in theistic religions. But the Buddha does not so much teach content as much as structure: the structure of our behaviour and the results of our behaviour.

Many Buddhists take the content of Buddhist doctrine as final and absolute, something to believe in literally and realistically. But all content of Buddhist doctrine is aimed at freeing the believers and practitioners from their suffering, and once they have freed themselves of suffering, all Buddhist doctrine is let go of. There is nothing final and absolute about Buddhist doctrine. Buddhist doctrine is only in view of its own dissolution and disposal, when it has done its job. It is mere means, and mere means to an end — the ending of suffering — and never an end in itself.

In Buddhism, one afflicts oneself with problems, and when one awakes to the solution, one realises that the problems have been self-created and self-inflicted, that there were no problems in the first place, and that their solution is not in solving the problems, in the positive, but in seeing that there were no problems in the first place, in the negative. In awakening one disposes of all problems and makes them not-problems.

So in Buddhism there are no answers, no dogmas, but merely the emptying out of problems, by seeing that they are self-created and self-inflicted. One creates one's suffering for oneself; one does not create suffering for oneself. The former is Saṃsāra — "faring-on." The latter is Nirvāṇa — "blowing-out, cooling-down."

They are not two worlds, two realities, two realms, in whatever sense — physical, spatial or otherwise — but merely two ways of dealing with the same world, two aspects of the same world, our daily world.

The misconception that many Buddhists entertain with regard to the above point is that they charge in and believe that there is a content to Buddhist awakening, like the content of beatific visions in Christianity, and that Nirvāṇa is a world or a reality separate from our daily world and reality.

But Buddhist awakening has no content specific to it. On the contrary, it is the emptying out of all content and structure of mind to let what happens happen just as it happens, without any interference from mind. It is the emptying out of all content and structure of mind to let what happens come in without any obstruction from mind. Even such notions, ideas and concepts as suffering and the ending of suffering, Nirvāṇa and Saṃsāra, are evacuated — so that mind is empty and free for what happens to come in unimpeded. And that state is Nirvāṇa, though whilst in it one does not mentate "Nirvāṇa" or anything else, like Saṃsāra.

Going back to method (dharma): it is a method whereby one frees oneself of one's suffering, and one can only free oneself of the suffering that one inflicts on oneself. No belief is needed, other than a trust that the method will verify itself as it is applied in real life. The practitioners of it need not know anything about the rest of the Buddha's teaching, need not even have heard of Nirvāṇa and such. They need only harbour enough trust in the method to try it out — and if it works in alleviating their suffering, then they develop more trust in it and can commit themselves further to it so that they can free themselves of more suffering. Trust develops dialectically, according as results of the method confirm the validity of the method, and in cultivating the method, the practitioners let go of their hang-ups, finish their unfinished business, grow up, recognise themselves as they are (not as they think themselves to be or wish themselves to be), reconnect themselves to themselves, make their ends meet, become reconciled with themselves, and become so reconciled with themselves that they can let their self go, that they can drop their self. And of course they are so reconciled with themselves that they even forget the method by which they came to reconcile with themselves.

Again, the method (dharma) is only the structure to help one learn to deal with oneself in such a way that one does not create suffering for oneself. It doesn't exist on its own, on its own side. It is not a content that one has to believe in, totally and absolutely, but is only a structure that one trusts enough to engage in — to test whether it helps one alleviate one's suffering, whether it helps one not create suffering for oneself, not inflict suffering on oneself — and as it verifies its worth to one, one can commit oneself further to it to help one relieve oneself of suffering. In the end, after it has fully verified itself in its effectiveness — and its effectiveness means only its effectiveness in helping one end one's suffering — one can be comfortable enough to let it go and just live.

It is an utter travesty on Buddhism to make some content of doctrine, like rebirth, a requirement for being a Buddhist.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on March 6, 2004. Author: Tang Huyen (Laughing Buddha, Inc.). 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 distills one of his central arguments: that the Dharma is structural, not doctrinal — a raft pointing toward its own abandonment, never a creed to be believed.

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

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