by Tang Huyen

Without thought and the categories, there is only sensation, which is flowing, continuous and fully differentiated, and in this sensation, there is no thing, no self, no I, no God.

I'll repost some stuff that goes in the direction of Buddha-nature Manifestation theory. You'll be disappointed, however, since it's from dead German males of the nineteenth century.

Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, XIX, 342–343, about Kant: "When we deal with the world, thought directs itself to the outside (for thought, the world given inside is also an outside); when we deal with it, we make it phenomenon [indem wir uns an sie wenden: machen wir sir zur Erscheinung]. It is the activity of our thought which coats the outside with so many determinations: the sensible, the determinations of reflection, etc. [die Thätigkeit unseres Denkens ist es, die dem Draussen so viel Bestimmungen anthut: das Sinnliche, Bestimmungen der Reflexion u. s. f.]. Only our knowing is phenomenon; the world is in itself, absolutely true [Nur unser Erkennen ist Erscheinen, die Welt ist an sich, absolut wahrhaft]. It is only our application, our behaviour which ruin it for us: what we add to it is worthless. The world thereby becomes only an untrue, on which we project a mass of determinations [Dadurch wird sie erst zu einem Unwahren, dass wir an sie eine Masse von Bestimmungen werfen]."

Again, ibid., XIX, 581–582, about Kant: "all these determinations, from the beginning in time, etc. do not belong to things in themselves, to the in-itself itself, which would exist for itself outside of our subjective thought [das ausserhalb unseres subjektiven Denkens für sich existirte]. If such determinations belonged to the world, to God, to free beings, an objective contradiction would be present; however this contradiction is not present in and for itself, but it belongs only to us: it has its source solely in our thought [dieser Widerspruch ist aber nicht an und für sich vorhanden, sondern kommt nur uns zu: er hat seine Quelle allein in unserm Denken]. Or again, this transcendental idealism lets subsist contradiction, except that the in-itself would not thus be contradictory, but that the contradiction would fall uniquely in our mind [Oder dieser transcendentale Idealismus lässt den Widerspruch bestehen, nur dass das Ansich nicht so widersprechend sey, sondern dieser Widerspruch allein in unser Gemüth falle].... The phenomenal world has an in-itself to which contradiction does not belong [Die Erscheinungswelt hat ein Ansich, dem kommt er nicht zu]. This in-itself is something other than spirit [Dieses ist ein Anderes, als der Geist]. That which contradicts itself destroys itself; thus spirit is in itself derangement, dementedness [Das Widersprechende zerstört sich; so ist der Geist Zerrüttung, Zerrückheit in sich selbst]."

Hegel, Faith and Knowledge, I, 29, about Kant: "A formal identity of this kind has immediately in front of it and next to it an infinite non-identity, with which it must coalesce in an inconceivable manner. Thus on one side the I arises with its productive imagination, or rather with its synthetic unity which, posed in isolation, is the formal unity of the multiple, but next to it an infinity of sensations, or, if one wills, of things in themselves, arise — this kingdom, insofar as it is abandoned by the categories, can be nothing other than a formless mass, though, according to the Critique of the Faculty of Judgement, it contains, as the kingdom of beautiful nature, determinities for which judgement can be, not subsuming, but reflecting. Nevertheless, insofar as objectivity and support in general come only from the categories, this kingdom exists well for itself and for reflection, though without the categories [neben dieselbe aber eine Unendlichkeit der Empfindungen und, wenn man will, der Dinge-an-sich; welches Reich, insofern es von den Kategorien verlassen ist, nichts anderes als ein formlosen Klumpen sein kann, obschon es auch nach der Kritik der Urteilskraft, als ein Reich der schönen Natur, Bestimmtheiten in sich enthält, für welche die Urteilskraft nicht subsumierend, sondern nur reflektierend sein kann. Aber weil doch Objektivität und Halt überhaupt nur von Kategorien herkommt, dies Reich aber ohne Kategorien und doch für sich und für Reflexion ist]."

Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Walter Jaeschke, V, 119–120, tr. Peter C. Hodgson: "Similarly, God's determinateness is not constituted by a predicate or a plurality of predicates. 'Predicates' (characteristics such as wisdom, justice, goodness) are not, to be sure, natural and immediate; but they are stabilized by reflection [sie sind stehend gemacht durch die Reflexion] — [each predicate is] a content that has attained through reflection the form of universality, of relation to self. Thus each determinate content has just become as immovable, just as rigidly for itself [unbeweglich geworden, fest für sich], as the natural content was to begin with."

Hegel, Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, I, Science of Logic, third edition, 1830, §31: "The representations of the soul, the world and God seem at first to provide a firm support for thought [dem Denken einen festen Halt zu gewähren]. But, besides the fact that the character of particular subjectivity is mixed in with them and that they therefore can have very different meaning, they need rather to receive the fixed determination by thought to begin with [so bedürfen sie vielmehr, erst durch das Denken die feste Bestimmung zu erhalten]."

The only objection possible to the above is when Hegel says that for Kant, the kingdom of beautiful nature, which is an infinity of sensations, or rather of things-in-themselves (sensation is continuous and not discrete, and it takes thought to cut sensation up into different things), can be nothing other than a formless mass as it is abandoned by the categories. Sensation is fully differentiated, not a formless mass — though it is true that it takes thought and the categories to cut it up into different things.

Without thought and the categories, there is only sensation, which is flowing, continuous and fully differentiated, and in this sensation, there is no thing, no self, no I, no God, as all of those are efforts of thought to stabilize the flowing sensation by means of the categories and force-fit it into pigeon-holes to make life easier, like thing, self, I, God, etc. Such fixed determinations come from thought and do not exist on their own.

To borrow the clumsy English translation from the Tibetan, they are inexistent on their own side. Sensation — the whole, uncut and unprocessed sensation — is the valid base in Tibetan epistemology. It is the only ultimate, the only ultimately existent. All else is derived from it, perhaps in fanciful tangents to it.

The sensation is itself true (though impermanent); only the products that thought carves out of it and constructs on top of it, often at quite some removes, are false, though some are less false than others. Tables and chairs are less false than the self, the I, God, etc.

The Perfection of Wisdom scriptures don't say anything else, and Hegel says it better than they.

Like: "objectivity (Objektivität = vastutaa) and support (Halt = prati.s.thaa) in general come only from the categories."

The Diamond scripture says: "the bodhisattva mahāsattva ought to give rise to an un-supported thought (a-prati.s.thita.m cittam), to a thought unsupported by anything (na kvacit-prati.s.thita.m cittam), to a thought unsupported by form, sound, scent, flavour, tangible, object-of-mind." Hui-neng is supposed to awaken when hearing this short disquisition. Hegel with his genius says many things that are as good and perhaps more to the point.

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Darstellung), in Sämtliche Werke, ed. Paul Deussen, I, 519–521 (tr. R. B. Haldane and John Kemp, II, 34–35, modified), where he first cites from memory "the oft-repeated, meaningless expression: 'the empirical of the intuition is given from without [Das Empirische der Anschauung wird von Aussen gegeben].'" He then cites in paraphrase Kant's assertion of "the two sources" (zwei Quellen, Kant says zwei Grundquellen "two originary sources," A50, B74), and continues a short while later: "He leaves the intuition, taken for itself, to be without the understanding [verstandlos], purely sensible, therefore wholly passive, and only through thinking (category of the understanding) does he allow an object to be apprehended [Er lässt die Anschauung, für sich genommen, verstandlos, rein sinnlich, also ganz passiv seyn, und erst durch das Denken {Verstandeskategorie} einen Gegenstand aufgefasst werden]."

The Buddha-nature Manifestation theory can't be better explained.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on February 8, 2004. Author: Tang Huyen ([email protected]). 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 from 2003 to 2008, he was among the most rigorous analytical voices in the English-language Buddhist Usenet world. This post assembles four passages from Hegel and one from Schopenhauer as philosophical testimony for the Buddha-nature Manifestation theory: the view that sensation — pre-categorial, flowing, undivided — is the only ultimate reality, and that the Diamond Sutra's "unsupported thought" (a-prati.s.thita.m cittam) is the practical expression of this insight. The German originals are retained alongside the English translations.

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

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