by Tang Huyen

"In your fathom-long body you have everything necessary to ensure salvation. Anything beyond that would only detract from salvation."

You are arguing from a point of view that wants to render account of everything and explain everything, like: how everybody will attain to awakening, in this life or thereafter, or not. Your point of view is creationist, in that God creates the world and knows everything that will happen in it, from the beginning to the end, and even beyond. But the Buddha, like us, is a mere happenstance, and he, like us, tries to become free, but does not offer an overall account of everything, and flatly claims that such an account is impossible. He, like us, has limited power of mental processing, and advises us to use it wisely, in paring down cares and worries and ultimately stopping them completely, or at least as much as humanly possible. Such limited power of mental processing cannot give a theory of everything, period, (we cannot wrap our mind around the world), and even if such a theory of everything was possible, it would be irrelevant to salvation, which is the ending of suffering, and the ending of suffering corresponds with an ending of mentation, especially mentation about the world. It is not possible to use our limited power of mental processing to know everything in the world and explain everything in the world, but even if that was possible, it would not make a dent in our suffering, and we would still have to deal with our suffering on top of juggling our total understanding of the world. The beginning of faring-on (samsara) is not discernable, and to try to render account of everything would lead to madness.

The Buddha says quite explicitly: "Do not mentate the world." Leave it alone and work diligently on your salvation, and our salvation can be quite taken care of by working on what is present to you here and now, namely the senses and what occurs in them. You cannot traverse the world with your fathom-long body, but in your fathom-long body you have everything necessary to ensure salvation. Anything beyond that would only detract from salvation. The stuff to work on to end your suffering is present to you in full in what occurs to your senses now, including what occurs in your mind. Bother with that and end your suffering.

"Wherefore you, householder, must train yourself thus: (you must think), 'I will not grasp after this world and so will have no consciousness dependent on this world.' This is how you must train yourself, householder. Wherefore you, householder, must train yourself thus: (you must think), 'I will not grasp after a world beyond and so will have no consciousness dependent on a world beyond.' This is how you must train yourself, householder." MLS, III, 312.

"And there are, Punna, forms cognisable by the eye... agreeable, pleasant, liked, connected with sensual pleasure, alluring. If a monk does not delight in these, does not welcome them or persist in cleaving to them, then, because he does not delight in them, does not welcome them or persist in cleaving to them, delight is stopped in him. I say, Punna, that from the stopping of delight is the stopping of suffering." MLS, III, 320 (translation modified).

By the way, the former passage is taken from a scripture (MN 143), where somewhat earlier the Buddha says:

"Wherefore you, householder, must train yourself thus: (you must think), 'I will not grasp after sight and so will have no consciousness dependent on sight.' This is how you must train yourself, householder." MLS, III, 310 (translation modified).

"Whatever monks or brahmans recollect their past lives in its various modes, they all recollect the five aggregates affected by clinging or one or other of them." SN, XXII, 79.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 27 September 2008, in the "Real men don't eat quiche" thread. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The fathom-long body teaching (from AN 4.45) is one of the canonical anchors of TH's consistently anti-creationist, present-focused Buddhism. The argument moves cleanly: no theory of everything is possible; even if possible, it would be irrelevant to the ending of suffering; what is needed is present to the senses right now. The three scriptural citations (MN 143, MN 105/Punna Sutta, SN 22.79) converge on one point: don't grasp after this world or the next, and delight stops — which is the stopping of suffering. Read alongside "Put Down the Past" (same day, same month) 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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