by Tang Huyen

The ultimate is what appears. We don't need to go
anywhere else, as it is already fully manifest in our
sensation. Its very integrity depends on the absence
of any in-between.

What is given to us is raw sensation, without
interpretation. Our contribution (other than the mere
cognition of raw sensation) is the interpretation. This
interpretation works by abstraction, and it is abstraction
that creates the things and objects that we deal with,
from concrete things like tables and chairs to abstract
entities or non-entities like freedom and truth.

Raw sensation is devoid of thought and therefore
devoid of duality. It has no preference, so it satisfies
the Pyrrhonian absence of preference. In it there is
no resistance, because resistance comes from
mentation. Therefore it is Quietist, in that it accepts
what is given to it and puts up no resistance.

Abstraction delivers to us the patched bits that we
deal with, because everything that we deal with,
outside of raw sensation, are patched together from
bits and pieces, and none of them is delivered to us
ready-made and of one piece. Abstraction does the
patching, and through it we get our things and objects.
These, concrete and abstract, are all mediated by
abstraction. They are all derived, abstracted, patched
together, composed, mentated. This includes our self
or "I", a patchwork of improbable incongruity.

Raw sensation is totally non-symbolic and
unmediated, and it goes by its own merit and does
not rely on translation or mediation of any kind to
make itself valid.

Shiro Matsumoto, "Critiques of Tathāgatagarbha
Thought and Critical Buddhism" (Journal of Buddhist
Studies, Faculty of Buddhism, Komazawa University,
No. 33, Oct 2002) mentions two Tathāgatagarbha
theories: "Buddha-nature Immanence theory" and
"Buddha-nature Manifestation theory." The former
corresponds to Indian Tathāgatagarbha theory, a
Buddhist version of the ātman theory of Hinduism,
according to which Buddha-nature is considered to
dwell within the bodies of sentient beings. The second
theory is a Chinese development of Indian
Tathāgatagarbha thought, according to which
Buddha-nature is already manifested as all phenomenal
existences, including non-sentient beings such as trees
and stones — phenomenal things, as such, are
Buddha-nature itself.

He then quotes the Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen
masters on this position:

Hui-chung: "Non-sentient things such as walls and
tiles are all the mind of the old Buddha."

Dōgen: "Everything is Buddha-nature."

The ultimate is what appears (let us remember that
to phainomenon in Greek means what appears). We
don't need to go anywhere else, as it is already fully
manifest in our sensation.

In another article, "Critical Considerations of Zen
Thought" (Annual Report of the Zen Institute,
Komazawa University, No. 10, Mar 1999), the same
author quotes Xuānshā: "Mountain is mountain.
River is river. There is no place, in the whole world
of ten quarters, that is not true." Every phenomenal
existence, especially the insentient, is affirmed as
absolute — the Manifestation theory carried to its
limit.

He also quotes Dōgen in a counter-position: "Some
people say that to see mountains and rivers is to see
Tathāgatas. They do not know the way of Buddhas
and Patriarchs."

For some Chan masters, what is manifest to us in
our phenomenal life, however humble, is already as
real and ultimate as we're ever to get — from
mountains and rivers right down to walls and tiles.
Nothing that affects us in sensation is untrue, so long
as we don't inflict our interpretation on it. And if we
leave it to bloom forth on its own accord, without
messing around with it, it's as true and ultimate as
we are ever to get. We don't need to go anywhere
else to get it, for it is already all around us,
immediately, gaplessly, up front. We don't need
anything to act as the in-between. Its very integrity
depends on the absence of any in-between.

That is the only unpatched that we ever get. It is the
basis for all our patched bits, so long as our patched
bits still relate to something unpatched.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on January 5, 2005, as a continuation of the Patched Bits exchange with Peter Bergwaldheimhausen. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

This post extends the Patched Bits argument into Tathāgatagarbha territory. The Matsumoto distinction between Immanence theory (dualistic: Buddha-nature lurks inside sentient beings, awaiting discovery) and Manifestation theory (monistic: Buddha-nature is already fully deployed as all phenomena) maps cleanly onto Tang Huyen's account of raw sensation as the unpatched given. The Greek phainomenon (what appears) is invoked to make the same point without Buddhist vocabulary: phenomenal manifestation is not deficient reality but the only ultimate we have. Dōgen's counter-position — that identifying mountains and rivers with Tathāgatas is already a mistake — is noted but not resolved. This post should be read as the companion to "Patched Bits."

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

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