by Tang Huyen

"It is this clearing out that is important, not the doctrinal content per se."

The Buddha speaks from different viewpoints, and often contradicts what he says from one viewpoint with what he says from another viewpoint — and this includes what he takes to be right view. He admits that he did not make Dependent Arisal, and that nobody makes it, but that it is there whether Tathāgatas arise or do not arise. Therefore he only comes afterward to the world and tries to make sense of it. So he does not speak the Law of the universe in the sense that he does not make it; whatever it is or is not, he comes afterward to interpret it to others, and "What and what they think it, it is otherwise." What he teaches is relative and has no absolute validity. Each of his teachings has its scope and at best is valid within that scope.

Since he wants to leave an establishment — he founds a religion that lasts to our day, twenty-four centuries after him — he has to act the part of a religious leader, and he teaches morality, including the theory of deed (kamma-vāda), probably to make the little people behave. He opposes the theory of no action (a-kiriya-vāda) at the level of social morality.

Yet he also teaches the destruction of deed to those who want to awaken. He flatly defines Nirvāṇa as the complete calming of the compositions (sabba-saṅkhāra-samatho), and also as the absence of the compositions (an-abhisaṅkhāra), where the compositions are the fourth aggregate (saṅkhāra). All the above Pāli words are from the stem kṛ- "to do, to act, to make," so Nirvāṇa can also be understood as non-acting, non-doing. At the level of social morality he teaches action (kamma) and opposes non-action (a-kiriya-vāda), but at the level of awakening he turns around and teaches non-action, non-doing, the destruction of deed (kamma-kkhaya).

"By the cutting of craving, deed (kamma) is cut; by the cutting of deed, suffering is cut (taṇhāya pahānā kammaṃ pahīyati, kammassa pahānā dukkhaṃ pahīyati)." — SN, V, 86 (46, 26). The puzzled Pāli Text Society translator adds a note: "To say that actions as such should be abandoned would be contrary to the Buddha's 'doctrine of the deed.'"

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 — which has no result (a-vipāka). The fourth is the volition (cetanā) to cut all three other kinds of deed, leading to the ending of deed (kamma-kkhaya). — AN, II, 230–231 (4, 232).

So what he teaches from the point of view of social morality he negates at the level of awakening. If you jump on the former and take it unilaterally, the latter is incomprehensible. But if you take his teaching on awakening, then his teaching on social morality becomes relative. Skilful and unskilful deeds are both dropped — indeed all deed is dropped. The teaching on skilful and unskilful deeds is mere means; they lead to the ending of deed altogether, which is the end, namely liberation. In liberation one has dropped both extremes, and not only has one dropped both extremes, but one has also dropped the dimension that encompasses both extremes.

Here there is the distinction between a contrary negation and a contradictory negation.

The negation is contrary in that the good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, and axiology works on that single dimension: the former is taken to be of more worth than the latter, and both extremes are in the same dimension with nothing outside of it. The dimension exhausts the scope of thought on the topic; one's thought moves only within it.

In Buddhism, the negation is contradictory in that the good/skilful is opposed to the bad/unskilful, but there is that which is outside of that opposition. Axiology works on that dimension and in excess of that dimension: the good/skilful is taken to be of more worth than the bad/unskilful, but both extremes are in the same dimension and there is something outside of that dimension — something the dimension does not encompass, and is flatly invalid with.

This kind of sinewy and anfractuous logic has to be carefully considered when you try to understand the Buddha's teaching. On top of that, even what he teaches at the level of awakening is still only a raft, and he takes care to negate it also.

It is this clearing out that is important, not the doctrinal content per se. He could have taught the same clearing out of mind with quite a different set of doctrinal content. Indeed the flexibility with regard to doctrinal content is itself part of his teaching, part of his clearing out of mind.

Augustine, De Trinitate, I, 1, 2: "For holy Scripture often reverts to things in creation, like toys for kids' use, to encourage the weak to search for higher things and to leave behind the lower things, according to their capacities and so to speak step by step. As to the things which can be affirmed truly and properly of God, and which cannot be found among creatures, holy Scripture speaks of them rarely — thus the word said to Moses: 'I am who I am' and 'He who is sent me to you.'"

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 3 June 2008, in the "Rebirth Views" thread. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

One of TH's clearest expositions of the two-level teaching structure in the Pāli Canon. The distinction between contrary negation (within a dimension) and contradictory negation (that steps outside the dimension entirely) is the logical core of his approach to Buddhist soteriology. The Pāli citations draw on SN 22 (the Khandha-saṃyutta), AN 4.232, and the Nidāna-saṃyutta. The closing Augustine passage — Scripture as "toys for kids' use" — functions as a cross-traditional validation: the West's own theologian admitted that most doctrine is provisional scaffolding. Read alongside "Canning a Surprise" (May 2008) and "To Use Falsity to Teach Truth" (May 2008) for TH's full account of Buddhist method as distinct from Buddhist metaphysics.

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

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