by Tang Huyen

"Buddhist awakening is purely purgative, in that the obstruction of mentation — the obstruction that mentation is — is forsaken, and nothing else has changed. In Buddhism the world cannot be changed, only one's attitude to the world can be changed, and such a change makes all the difference."

The Buddha likened all teachings in Buddhism,
theoretical and practical, to a raft, which can help
one cross over from this shore of suffering to the
other shore of the ending of suffering, but is to be
forsaken once it has done its job and not to be held
on to forever — because if it was to be held on forever,
one would still cause suffering to oneself by
attachment to it and it would not have done its
purported job. It is merely a tool, a temporary tool,
and is not anything ultimate, existing in itself.

This instrumentalist view in Buddhism contrasts
sharply with the common view of the history of
salvation in the theistic religions, where God laid his
Law down in Word, and in order to be redeemed
his creatures have to believe in his Word, that is, in
the doctrinal content of his Revelation. Even then
they still have to practice that content in real life,
however they may interpret it. But practice is in
addition to content, on top of content, and content
is valid always and forever on its own side, even
after the fullness of time, when the saved are
already saved forever and the damned are already
damned forever. The saved still have to behold in
utter love God's Word, even after it has already
unfolded in reality.

As to Hinduism, it advocates merging into the
attributeless Brahman, therefore identifying with it,
but Buddhism advocates the abandoning of any and
all identification, and in Buddhism salvation is in
this renunciation of any identification whatsoever.
Hinduism takes the particularities that are to be
forsaken as belonging to things and objects out
there in the world, including oneself, and Brahman
is what is left after they are fully abandoned, but
Buddhism takes all particularities to be forsaken as
belonging to the mind alone, and awakening is what
is left after they are fully abandoned, with what
happens still remaining intact, only no longer being
subject to the interpretation by mentation, which
normally — in delusion — imposes its particularities on
what happens.

Buddhist awakening is purely purgative, in that the
obstruction of mentation — the obstruction that
mentation is — is forsaken, and nothing else has
changed. In Buddhism the world cannot be changed,
only one's attitude to the world can be changed, and
such a change makes all the difference. There is only
a change in optic, the world remaining the same. By
abandoning one's interpretative layer, one purifies the
world and redeems oneself.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 4 November 2006, in a thread on the relationship between Buddhism and Yoga, in reply to a poster arguing that Buddhism and Patañjali share the same ontology and both draw a hard line against Abrahamic theism. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Three interlocking distinctions in one post: (1) Buddhist raft instrumentalism versus theistic revelation-content that remains valid in itself forever; (2) Hindu Brahman-identification (all particularities of the external world forsaken) versus Buddhist non-identification (all particularities of the mind forsaken, external world untouched); (3) awakening as purely purgative — nothing positive is added, only the obstruction removed. The "change in optic" formulation is characteristic Tang Huyen: the world does not change, the lens does, and that is total transformation.

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

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