by Tang Huyen
So Buddhism teaches thoughtlessness, and teaches that Nirvana is thoughtlessness (nis-cinta).
If, as you say, the Buddha established a style of teaching through clear, verbose (to the point of being repetitive), intelligible, and common sense (not clever) words and analogies and reasoning, why is it that there are so many differing and warring interpretations of his teaching, ever since his very days?
The only way I can understand his teaching, as it is recorded in the early canon in Chinese, Sanskrit (in fragments) and Pali, is that he is intentionally adapting his teaching to the various circumstances that he faces and therefore delivers a message that is contradictory and that needs interpretation to sort it out. The early canon is incoherent and inconsistent, and it takes some synthesis to arrive at any coherent interpretation, which is what the Buddhist tradition has been doing anyway, though the results differ.
As to the Kamalasīla-inspired "Buddhism does not teach thoughtlessness", have you actually read the Buddha, Naggie and Deva?
The Buddha says that a person composes harmful body compositions, harmful speech compositions, harmful mind compositions, and having composed them he arises in a harmful world. Ditto with harmless compositions, and both harmful and harmless compositions. AN, I, 122–123 (3, 23), Samtani, Arthaviniscaya-Sūtra, 115, also Zitate, 232.
The Buddha says that there are four kinds of deeds, the black deed with black result (vipāka), the white deed with white result, the black and white deed with black and white result, and the neither black nor white deed with neither black nor white result, it has no result (Skt. a-vipāka). The first three are the same as those of the preceding text; the fourth and last (which is, though this is left implicit, neither harmful nor harmless, and therefore not deed at all, and which will not lead to any re-arisal in any world, harmful or harmless) is the volition (cetanā) to cut all three other kinds of deed, leading to the ending of deed (kamma-kkhaya, Skt. karma-kṣaya). AN, II, 230–231 (4, 232), MA, 111, 600a26–28, Zitate, 312, Stache-Rosen, Saṅgīti-sūtra, 113, Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T, 32, 1646, 281a23–24, Mahā-vibhāṣā, T, 27, 1545, 589c.
Deed (karman) and the compositions (saṃskāra, the fourth aggregate) are based on the same root kṛ- "to do, to act, to make". When the Buddha talks about the ending of deed (kamma-kkhaya, Skt. karma-kṣaya), he means the quiescence of the compositions (the fourth aggregate, which includes language and thought), and he indeed defines Nirvāṇa as the calming of all compositions (sabba-saṅkhāra-samatho).
Ultimate reality (paramārtha, tattva) is for Naggie the state without the compositions (the fourth aggregate), or without mentation, and on this his disciple Deva agrees.
"Consequently, the ignorant composes the compositions which are the root of faring-on. The ignorant is thus agent [= he does deeds], not the sage [= he does no deeds], who sees reality (saṃsāra-mūlan saṃskārān avidvān saṃskaroty ataḥ, avidvān kārakas tasmān na vidvāṃs tattva-darśana)." //XXVI, 10//
Deva repeats him as follows, Karen Lang, Āryadeva's Catuḥśataka, 82–83, VIII, 11 (translation modified):
"Blowing-out is for someone who does not compose; rebirth is for someone who composes. Consequently, blowing-out is easy to attain when one does not think; the opposite is not (a-kurvaṇasya nirvāṇam kurvaṇasya punar-bhavaḥ, niś-cintena sukhaṃ prāptuṃ tena netaraḥ)."
What remains in that state is the arithmetic subtraction of mentation from normal experience, and therefore sensation is left intact and alone. The sage sees reality and does not mentate it. There is nothing more to wisdom than that.
The expression used by Deva, niś-cinta, can be strictly translated as "not thinking, non-mentation", and loosely translated as "absence of mind, freedom from mind". The thrust of the teaching is that one opens oneself up to what happens in the raw and does not resist it, does not interpose between it and oneself any narrative to make sense of it, and it is this narrative that creates the self to serve as the linking pin for it.
So Buddhism teaches thoughtlessness, and teaches that Nirvāṇa is thoughtlessness (niś-cinta).
Colophon
Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on August 24, 2003. 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 was a response to the claim that Buddhism is a tradition of clear verbal instruction — Tang Huyen counters by demonstrating that the early canon, Nāgārjuna, and Āryadeva all teach that Nirvāṇa is precisely the cessation of thought and mentation.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲