by Tang Huyen

Whatever remains is spontaneous and spacious, because mind has emptied itself out.

Buddhism, if I understand it aright, would
in the first pass remove the “I am” from
the two assertions (“I am nothing” and
“I am everything”), because the “I am” is
amongst the roots of delusion, in the
second pass remove the “nothing” and the
“everything” also, as they are mere
abstractions, and in the third pass, last but
not least, remove the ideals and live life in
the raw, unencumbered by all those
abstractions, all of them mind-made and
noxious. Whatever remains is spontaneous
and spacious, because mind has emptied
itself out.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on July 17, 2004, in reply to a thread quoting Nisargadatta Maharaj: “When I see that I am nothing, that is great wisdom. And when I see that I am everything, that is great love. Between these two ideals, my life moves.” Interlocutor: /-9. Author: Tang Huyen (Laughing Buddha, Inc.). Message-ID: <[email protected]>.*

The post is brief but precise. Tang Huyen’s response to Nisargadatta is not a refutation but a deepening: the Advaita framework retains “I am” as the fundamental ground even in its supreme formulations, whereas Buddhism removes it in the first pass as a root of delusion (asmiti in the Pali canon: “”I am” is a thought, maññita”). The second pass applies the same logic to the nouns: “nothing” and “everything” are both abstractions, both mind-made. The third pass removes even the ideals — wisdom and love as goals — and what remains is not a state to achieve but simple life, raw and unadorned. The word “trimmings” in the subject line implies that Buddhism is stripping the ornament from the formula until only the live fact remains.

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

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