by Tang Huyen

Tang Huyen was among the most philosophically rigorous contributors to talk.religion.buddhism in the mid-2000s. His posts consistently engaged the canonical Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese Agama texts in their original languages, treating the Buddha's teaching not as a collection of moral precepts but as a fully elaborated philosophical system. This essay, written in response to a query about whether Buddhism is philosophy, offers one of his most sustained and lucid accounts of the Buddha's core intellectual commitments.

The central argument here is that the Buddha's revolt was not merely spiritual but philosophical: a systematic rejection of what Tang Huyen calls "artificialism" — the Brahmanical (and later Platonic and Augustinian) tendency to impose external frameworks, norms, and self-existent structures onto reality. Against this, the Buddha proclaimed Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda): the world runs itself by regularity of nature, without requiring any external agency — divine will, cosmic mind, or even our own conceptual scaffolding — to sustain it.

The essay moves from the critique of Brahmanical cosmology, through the Buddha's radical critique of thought and language, to the notion of the "unsupported mind" (a-pratisthita-citta) in the Diamond Sutra and the Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom — showing how the entire arc of Buddhist teaching, from the earliest Nikāyas through Mādhyamaka and Prajñāpāramitā, rests on a single anti-Platonic commitment: that conceptual structures, however useful as servants, become our captors when mistaken for reality. The essay cites Nagarjuna, Hegel, Augustine, and Hui-neng alongside the canonical Pali and Chinese sources.

The Buddha is often taken to be a moralizer, even a timid and wimpy moralizer, who restricts his teaching to morality. Nothing can be further from the truth. Right off, morality is bound to good and evil, merit and demerit, but he teaches liberation from good and evil, merit and demerit, and this fact alone already commits him to some philosophical position. Not only that, but he broadly chooses philosophical options of a very strong character, even if ultimately he also teaches the letting go of all philosophical positions, including his own.

The main idea of the Buddha is regularity of nature, expectableness of nature. What he revolts against is the Brahmanical idea of the irresponsible will of the God-Creator, which is the same as what Christian theologians praise to the sky as God's inscrutable will that answers to nothing other than itself.

Brahma created our world by thinking it, maintains it by thinking it, and Brahmans pray to him every day so that he keeps on thinking it and thus maintains it in order. The day the last Brahman dies, no prayer comes to Brahma to keep the world in order, so Brahma stops thinking it (not: thinking about it) and it goes poof! The world then dissolves into total disorder.

So, in the Brahmanical world-view (in the strong sense: a world-view creates the world that it views), order (ṛta) depends entirely on Brahma, and Brahma serves as the support for the world. The Buddha revolts against that artificialism, and proclaims that the world runs itself by regularity of nature, and this regularity (dharmatā, nature of things) is called Dependent Arising.

His entire thrust is that thing-events follow each other in regularity, can be expected to follow each other in regularity, don't depend on any will for that regularity, therefore the world can be left to run itself without us bothering about its dissolution if somebody like Brahma stops thinking it, and on the contrary our thinking is the veil that blocks us from seeing reality as it is, so we should stop thinking the world and instead just receive it passively in raw sensation in order to see it as it is (not as we wish it to be, and not as we think it to be).

The Buddha says: "the dependent arising has not been made by me, has not been made by others. Whether the Tathāgatas were to arise or Tathāgatas were not to arise, this nature of things has remained (sthita eveyam dharmatā, this legality has stood), the modality (dhātu) for the standing of things." — SA, 299, 85b, Nidāna-saṃyukta, 164–165, Dà zhì dù lùn, T, 25, 1509, 298a11–20.

This statement flatly negates any attempt to introduce a God-Creator or any kind of transcendent agency (like a universal mind) that regulates the world and us. The world runs on its own and does not need external forces to help it run itself and maintain itself. And it runs itself best when we refrain from attempting to interfere with its running by means of, e.g., our mind.

His revolt against artificialism includes thought and language, and to him they are good servants and bad masters. Buddhism from him on down has always included a thoroughgoing critique of thought and language, to the effect that they are useful in helping us to survive but ultimately are inadequate to their referents and incoherent in themselves. This critique extends all the way down to things and objects of our daily life, for they are not delivered to us all-made but are constructed by us from sensation, which itself is devoid of them.

The layman Citra says: "Lust makes for limit, hostility makes for limit, delusion makes for limit; but the strifeless (araṇa) is the best unlimited. Lust makes for sign, hostility makes for sign, delusion makes for sign; but the strifeless is signless. Lust is something (kiñcano), hostility is something, delusion is something; but the strifeless is no-thing (a-kiñcano, not something). Furthermore the strifeless is empty of lust (suñña rāgena), of hostility, of delusion, of anything stable, unchanging, of self and of what belongs to self [= of I and mine]." — SA, 569, 149c–150a, SN, VI, 295–297 (41, 7); MN, I, 297–298 (43).

Limit here translates the word pamāna, which also means dimension.

In Buddhism, suffering is caused by friction, and friction comes from thingness (somethingness), the tendency of mind to assign limits to what then becomes things (somethings) and to stabilise limits with concepts and categories, structures and frameworks. The fuel (upādāna) behind that limiting and stabilising tendency is desire, or more specifically the three poisons: lust, hostility, and delusion.

The cardinal sin in Buddhism is to follow words to chase realities. In western philosophy this is called the induction from the logical-ideal to the real. The biggest and baddest object of such a chase is the self or I, which delimits us from the outside world.

So the way to end suffering is to end friction, and the way to end friction is to void out desire (or the three poisons) so that mind no longer assigns limits and stabilises them with concepts and categories, structures and frameworks. Given that the whole operation is fuelled by desire, desire itself is voided out, and that ends suffering.

Mind then receives sensation from the world and from oneself without any resistance, as resistance would be caused by the tendency to assign limits to what then becomes things (somethings) and to stabilise limits with concepts and categories, structures and frameworks. Mind opens itself without gap to what comes to it, and receives it without mediation, without interpretation (and a concept is already interpretation). Mind attains to infinite plasticity to avoid suffering. In this state, mind does not stop at anything, stand on anything, and settle down into anything.

The Unsupported Mind

The Buddha's overall philosophical position is anti-Platonic, in that Plato trusts natural language and words, exalts some words like Justice, Beauty, Being, and takes such words to be the intelligible originals and models for our sensible copies.

The Buddha performs a severe, austere critique of language and thought, and to him language and thought are artificial, after-the-fact creations, inadequate to their referents and incoherent in themselves. The Platonic position is the exact contrary, in that to it, words set up the intelligible models for our sensible copies, e.g., the word Justice sets up the template for just acts and is the origin of them. In western philosophical language the Platonic position with regard to language and thought is per phusin (by nature), and the Buddha's position is per thesin (by laying down, by convention, by artifice).

The epitome of the Platonic attachment to fixity (standing) is Saint Augustine, Sermo Denis, II, 5 in Miscellanea Agostiniana, Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1930, I, 16, PL, 46, 825: "Stand on the is, stand on the is itself. Where are you going? Stand firm, in order that you can be. But when can we hold the flighty thought, and attach ourselves to what stays? When can we do it? (State ad EST, state ad ipsum EST. Quo itis? State, ut et vos esse possitis. Sed quando tenemus volaticam cogitationem, et ad id quod manet affigimus? quando possumus?)."

Ironically, Augustine for an instant is close to (and marvellously summarizes) what the Buddha says, in Enarratio in Psalmum 38, 7, PL, 36, 418, CCSL, 38, 408: "In attending to it well, it is clear that it is not; if I attach to it, it is as if it was, but if I pass by and leave it, it is not (Plane, si adtendam bene, non est: si hæream, quasi est; si transiliam, non est)."

Hegel, Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, I, Science of Logic, third edition, 1830, §31, excellently sums up the Buddha's doctrine: "The representations of the soul, the world and God seem at first to provide a firm support for thought, but, besides the fact that the character of particular subjectivity is mixed in with them and that they therefore can have very different meaning, they need rather to receive the fixed determination by thought to begin with."

The Buddha teaches us to refrain from imposing anything on what happens, to drop all norms and standards, and to let what happens happen in all its freedom, without any obstruction and resistance from us (and a concept is already obstruction and resistance). That is also our freedom.

Just to make sure that the above interpretation is correct, let us check a few references. The Buddha talks about meditating without leaning on anything whatsoever, the All included:

"He meditates not leaning on earth, water, fire, air, the place of infinity of space, the place of the infinity of consciousness, the place of nothing(ness), the place of neither notion nor not-notion; he meditates not leaning on this world, the world beyond, on whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognised, obtained, sought after, followed after by mind, the sun and the moon, without leaning on them he meditates (na pṛthivim niśritya dhyāyati), because he has un-done (vi-bhūta) the notion of earth (pathaviya saññā vibhūta hoti) to the notion of the All (sarva). To him thus meditating, the gods with Indra, with Brahma and with Prajāpati even from afar bow down, saying:

We worship you, thoroughbred of men, we worship you, most excellent of men,
For what it is dependent on which you meditate, that we cannot comprehend!"

— AN, V, 323–326 (11, 10), SA, 926, 235c–236b; Sanskrit in Louis de la Vallée Poussin, "Notes on (1) Śūnyatā and (2) the Middle Path," Indian Historical Quarterly, 1928, 168; Bodhisattva-bhūmi, 49–50 and Lamotte, Traité, 86, n. 2.

There is a dialogue where a brahman asks the Buddha:

"Friend Gotama! Where are the brahmanic scriptures supported?"
"The brahmanic scriptures are supported by man!"
"Friend Gotama! Where is man supported?"
"Man is supported by food."
[...]
"Friend Gotama! Where is wind supported?"
"Wind is supported by space."
"Friend Gotama! Where is space supported?"
"You go too far, great brahman. Space is un-supported (a-pratiṣṭhita)."

The brahman misses the Buddha's double message and keeps asking where sun and moon are supported; the Buddha leads him through the four god-kings to the Great Brahma, who according to the Buddha is supported by patience and honesty. After the Buddha's reduction of all brahmanic cosmology physical and divine to morality, the brahman keeps asking where patience and honesty are supported, and the Buddha answers that they are supported by blowing-out (nirvāṇa). The brahman asks where nirvāṇa is supported, and the Buddha answers:

"Brahman! You want to have the ultimate supported! Your question goes too far (atisarasi)! However blowing-out (nirvāṇa) is un-supported (a-pratiṣṭhita)! Blowing-out is the goal, blowing-out is the end!"

This dialogue is famous in Indian Buddhism, and is quoted by Nāgārjuna; see Christian Lindtner, "Nāgārjuna and the Problem of Precanonical Buddhism," Religious Traditions, Volumes 15–16–17, 1994, 120 and n. 13.

The Diamond Sutra and the Perfection of Wisdom

The Diamond Scripture says: "the bodhisattva mahāsattva ought to give rise to an un-supported thought (a-pratiṣṭhitaṃ cittam), to a thought unsupported by anything (na kvacit-pratiṣṭhitaṃ cittam), to a thought unsupported by form, sound, scent, flavour, tangible, object-of-mind." Hui-neng is supposed to awaken when hearing this short disquisition. It is often quoted by the Hvashang of Northern Chan in the Lhasa debate against Kamalaśīla.

A being devoted to awakening (bodhi-sattva), a great being, having stood in the perfection of wisdom, by way of not taking his stand on it (prajñā-pāramitāyām sthitvā-asthāna-yogena), should perfect the perfection of giving, by way of seeing that no renunciation has taken place, since gift, giver, and recipient have not been apprehended (dāyaka-pratigrāhaka-deyānupalabdhitām upādāya). — Edward Conze, The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, 45; Étienne Lamotte, Le traité de la grande vertu de la sagesse, II, 650.

The above quotations say roughly: "All support is unsupported," "All foundation is unfounded," "All basis is baseless," "All establishment is unestablished," "All ground is groundless," "All bottom is bottomless." Very anti-Platonic.

The thrust here is not to deny that there are expectable patterns out there and in here, for surely they exist and we can rely on them. It is that if we on our side set up such norms and standards for ourselves, we unknowingly frame ourselves by them, so that what we use to demarcate, delimit, and delineate reality turns around to demarcate, delimit, and delineate us. What we use to chunk and bag reality turns around to chunk and bag us. We thus unknowingly freeze ourselves, box ourselves, and break our freedom. By using such norms and standards only when needed and to the extent that they are needed, and releasing them otherwise, we optimise our freedom and happiness.

This overall vision is applicable to the full in Chan/Son/Zen, too. But again when it is applied to the full, there is no more intellective view, therefore no more philosophical view or position. There is only spontaneity and normlessness.

Colophon

Written by Tang Huyen. Posted to alt.zen, talk.religion.buddhism, and alt.philosophy.zen, October 2006. The post arose in response to a discussion thread "Is Buddhism Philosophy?" and offers a comprehensive account of the Buddha's philosophical commitments — from his revolt against Brahmanical artificialism, through his anti-Platonic critique of language and thought, to the doctrine of the unsupported mind (a-pratiṣṭhita-citta) in the Prajñāpāramitā literature.

Tang Huyen was a regular contributor to talk.religion.buddhism in the 2003–2009 period, known for engaging Buddhist canonical texts in Pali, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, and for situating the Buddha's philosophy in relation to Western thinkers including Plato, Augustine, and Hegel. His posts represent some of the most rigorous philosophical engagement with canonical sources produced in that Usenet era.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Works Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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