by Tang Huyen

"The lotus grows in mud, grows out of mud, and is not dirtied by mud. That is the wonder of awakening."

To work or be valid within the realm of what it is natural to one to do — that is the characteristic of the limited, of the deluded. To get outside of the framework of what is one's nature is opening up, awakening.

The former is utilitarian; the latter has nothing to do with any use. It is like art — it has no use, even less any use for survival, but it goes on and on outside of any scope, any limit, without conceding anything to any utilitarian purpose: art for art's sake.

Satan said: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" — the epitome of the stricture of delusion, namely of working or being valid within the realm of what it is natural to one to do. Heaven is the liberation from such stricture, in that it tears up the envelope and throws it away, and opens up a space outside of all references, especially utilitarian references, be they abstract and disinterested, as in mathematics, logic, and pure science.

The transcendent, by definition, is that which overbrims all limits, all containments, all boxes, all references, that which is not confined to chunking and bagging. In its utter limitlessness, it does not prevent what it transcends from lodging in it, as it has room for everything. It can preserve in itself without discomfort what it transcends — otherwise it would be stuck to what it transcends, by negation, as concave to convex. It does not negate anything, in that it has no limit and therefore has room for everything without discrimination, including what it transcends.

It seems that evolution is utilitarian, but not strictly utilitarian. It strives to develop what is useful for survival, and yet whilst doing so it also develops, as accidental by-products, certain traits and features that are not obviously related to use in survival, but that can serve some other purpose — like transcendence. Use is within the world, and what is devoid of use can be harmful (that part belongs to the world, even if negatively), but can also be mustered for unworldly purpose, like transcendence. In other words, evolution grows traits and features that help beings survive in the world, and that sometimes turn around to harm them, but sometimes it also grows on the side — perhaps unintentionally — some traits and features devoid of use in the world but that help transcend the world, in perpendicularity to the world. That excess fosters transcendence: sloughing off the world and planing above it.

The lotus grows in mud, grows out of mud, and is not dirtied by mud. That is the wonder of awakening.

It is to be noted that such an "edgewise," fringe development may or may not serve survival at all. The Parable of the Saw most definitely does not foster survival. The world has been "left on one side," to borrow from the Buddha, and survival is no longer the supreme priority that it was.

In a sense awakening is unnegotiable. There is no price to it. That is what makes it worthwhile. Praise be!

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 7 June 2008, in the "Bhante G on Literal Rebirth" thread, in reply to discussion about intelligence and the limits of natural capacity. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A compact statement of TH's perpendicularity thesis applied to the question of transcendence itself. The Milton citation (Paradise Lost, I.263) functions as a precise foil: Satan's preference for reigning in hell over serving in heaven is the archetype of remaining within the envelope of one's deluded nature rather than tearing it open. The evolutionary by-product argument is one of TH's few engagements with naturalistic explanations of spiritual capacity — he does not oppose evolution but finds in it an unexpected opening for the transcendent. The Parable of the Saw (MN I.129) — wherein a monk being sawn apart should beam loving-kindness to his tormentors — appears here as the paradigm case of awakening's indifference to survival: the world truly left on one side. For the related lotus image in the Mahāyāna context, see the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra, Chapter III.

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

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