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Article #270

Re: new to buddhism, have a question( talk.religion.buddhism)

#270
From: Tang Huyen
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 00:00
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WonderingOne wrote: <<If the buddha-dharma is not into ''concepts'' but instead
is into ''seeing'' then why do people, when discussing buddhism debate what is
the right view? because, then, wouldn't a right view be unarguable...it just
would ''be'' and you would ''know'' because you could 'see'....

i guess i also wonder why two people would 'see' different right views...is it
possible that one's would be wrong, or is it just possible that both right views
would be part of a whole right view?

-just wondering.>>

In Buddhism, we start from where we are to get to where we want to be, and where
we are is full of concepts and intellective-discursive views. Where we want to
be, as you say, is not into ''concepts'' but instead is into ''seeing'', but we
can't suddenly jump there from where we are. So we perforce have to use concepts
and intellective-discursive views to get rid of concepts and
intellective-discursive views. On the path, we work to reduce their importance,
their stickiness, until they thin out completely and vanish.

So right view has two meanings: right view (which is still an
intellective-discursive view) while still on the path, and right view at the
end, when the goal has been attained, which is no longer an
intellective-discursive view but is totally outside of thought and language.

Two people can have two versions of the former, because no thought or language
is ever going to be perfectly adequate to reality -- sensible reality -- and any
intellective-discursive view is going to be inadequate to reality, therefore
reality can accommodate many intellective-discursive views that are at best
approximate and never fully adequate to it. If different people learn the
Buddha-Dharma, they will interpret it in different ways, and if they stay close
enough to the original, they will have right view, but it will be provisional,
temporary and not perfect and ultimate (and therefore not unique). Those views
-- and they are intellective-discursive views, even if they are right -- do
*not* come together to make a whole right view, because there is no fully
"right" view so long as there is language and thought, but only partial right
views that will have to be relinquished in the end.

As to the latter, right view at the end, when the goal has been attained, which
is no longer an intellective-discursive view but is totally outside of thought
and language -- it is totally unique in any instant, because universality
(commonness) comes from concepts and intellective-discursive views, but in their
total absence, what is outside of thought and language -- raw sensation -- will
perforce be totally unique to the recipient in each instant.

So that two persons perceiving the "same" reality -- sensible reality -- in
almost the same place at the same time will see two different realities, that
have not been fitted into concepts and intellective-discursive views and
therefore are left in their uniqueness. Though the persons in question will not
think "unique" or "ultimate", but simply receive raw sensation without any
interpretation. This purely passive reception receives the world and oneself as
a unitary whole though fully differentiated, but does not think "unitary",
"whole", "differentiated", etc.,

As the Buddha says, "In the seen there will be just the seen". I. e., there will
be no interpretation, and any concept at all is already interpretation, not to
speak of intellective-discursive views. As you say, it will be unarguable,
because it is totally outside of language and thought, i. e., outside of any
commonness or universality. It is, if you will, a dumb reception.

Tang Huyen
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From: Tang Huyen <thuyen@bu.edu>
Subject: Re: new to buddhism, have a question( talk.religion.buddhism)
Date: 1999/12/27
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