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Article #270Re: new to buddhism, have a question( talk.religion.buddhism)
From: Tang Huyen
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 00:00
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 00:00
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X-Orig-MsgId: <3867672A.FDAB5542@bu.edu> 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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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1552e4,a35b5278713ffa52,start X-Google-Attributes: gid1552e4,public From: Tang Huyen <thuyen@bu.edu> Subject: Re: new to buddhism, have a question( talk.religion.buddhism) Date: 1999/12/27 Message-ID: <847un9$8gr$1@news1.bu.edu> X-Deja-AN: 565318480 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <847a3f$5k0e$1@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com> To: Tang Huyen <thuyen@bu.edu> X-Accept-Language: en X-Orig-Newsgrp: talk.religion.buddhism Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Boston University Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: bu.localpostings