by Tang Huyen

He realised that what was to be dropped could not be
dropped because it was unobtainable and could not be
made known as real and established in the present
things, and that realisation freed him.

You seem to have one rock to stand on, and that's your
taking clinging and craving to be extinguished, which
implies that to you they can be handled, and handled in
such a way as to be extinguished. The Buddha as
preserved in the Chinese Āgamas wasn't that firm on it.

He realised that what he had to let go of — his self,
views, fetters, latencies, etc. — was unobtainable and
could not be made known as real and established in the
present things. So, he realised that what was to be
dropped could not be dropped because it was
unobtainable and could not be made known as real and
established in the present things, and that realisation
freed him.

He said: "Self and what belongs to self are unobtainable
and cannot be made known as real and established in the
present things, the views, fetters and latencies in the
mind are unobtainable and cannot be made known,"
or: "The Tathāgata is unobtainable and cannot be made
known as real and established in the present things."
— MA 200, 765b29; SA 104, 31b1–2.

The whole Perfection of Wisdom scriptures is presaged
in those few lines. It doesn't offer anything above and
beyond them.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 19, 2005, in reply to an interlocutor ("Keynes") who insisted that what is extinguished is clinging and craving, and that the ego-self cannot be killed because it does not really exist. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

The post resolves an apparent paradox by driving it to its canonical ground. The interlocutor's position — clinging and craving can be extinguished — assumes they are obtainable targets. Tang Huyen's counter: the Chinese Āgama tradition explicitly denies this. The self, the views, the fetters, the latencies are unobtainable; they cannot be made known as real and established in the present things. It is not that they are extinguished by an act of will but that the practitioner realises there is nothing there to extinguish — and that realisation is the liberation. Tang Huyen then makes his most concentrated canonical claim: the entire apparatus of Prajñāpāramitā literature (Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom) presupposes this insight and does not advance beyond it. Canonical sources: Madhyama-Āgama 200 (765b29) and Saṃyuktāgama 104 (31b1–2).

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

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