What do you think of this passage?

I’m going to give the wonderful people here a passage that has been freely adapted by me for the purposes of this post. The original comes from Śramaṇa Zhìyǐ, an early Chinese Mahāyānist, but I hope that you will evaluate what is being said on its own merits.

[quote]Furthermore, a single moment of thought in the mind of a common being [in this lifetime] possesses the ten realms [of rebirth]. They completely possess the nature and characteristics of evil karma, yet the nature and characteristics of evil are the nature and characteristics of virtue. It is due to evil that there is virtue. Apart from evil there is no virtue. Turning over evils, there is virtue supporting them, like inside bamboo there being the nature of fire. It is not yet the object of fire, which is why it exists but does not burn. When meeting with conditions the phenomenon comes to exist, and then it can burn things. Evil as the nature of virtue is not yet an existent phenomenon. When it meets with conditions it become an existent phenomenon, and then there can be a turn to evil. It is like bamboo. Fire is emitted and returns, burning the bamboo. In evil there is virtue. When virtue comes to exist it returns, destroying the evil. This is why that which are the nature and characteristics of evil are the nature and characteristics of virtue. A single moment of thought of an ordinary being always possesses the consciousnesses, names and forms of the ten realms. The nature and characteristics of the path of saṃsāra – they misunderstand this path of saṃsāra, and saṃsāra remains expansive. This is misunderstanding Nirvāṇa as the path of saṃsāra. There is no separate Nirvāṇa apart from the path of saṃsāra, like mistaking south as north, there is no separate south. If one realizes saṃsāra, then it is Nirvāṇa. Thus it is said the nature, characteristics, and conceptualizations of the path of saṃsāra are the nature, characteristics, and conceptualizations of Nirvāṇa.[/quote]This quote has been altered for the purposes of this post.

Śramaṇa Zhìyǐ articulates a point very similar to many modern monks in the Theravāda tradition (I believe this position to be somewhat prominent in Zen as well but I lack sufficient exposure to that community of practitioners to say for sure), namely, that, rebirth actually occurs constantly in the present, not necessarily over long periods of time involving the death of multiple bodies, now, some monks are more radical, and argue that “conventional” rebirth is a superstition, and that in fact there is only this “inter-life” birthing of new “mental selves/identities” that constitutes rebirth, and I am not entirely in disagreement with this interpretation, but that is an issue for a different thread.

What I wanted to know people’s opinions on was the discourse towards the end, namely: “Thus it is said the nature, characteristics, and conceptualizations of the path of saṃsāra are the nature, characteristics, and conceptualizations of Nirvāṇa.”

Śramaṇa Zhìyǐ is showing his East Asian Madhyamaka roots here in this discourse, because it is clearly inspired or based on Nāgārjuna’s occasionally-infamous discourse: “There is no distinction whatsoever between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. There is no distinction whatsoever between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra.”

What do people think of this here?

If one starts with the idea that nibbana is some kind of place or realm, then the question becomes, “Where is that place? Where is the nibbanic realm?” The answer in much of the Mayayana tradition is that the nibbanic realm is no different than the samsaric realm.

But if one thinks that nibbana is a spiritual attainment or state of mind, not a realm of mind-independent reality, then there certainly does seem to be a difference between the wanderer in samsara who has attained nibbana and the wanderer in samsara who has not attained nibbana. (Yet, there is the tendency in Madhyamaka to deny even than that, so fastidious are they about avoiding all dualisms.)

The idea that everything exists only in relationship to its opposite, which then gets expressed in this kind of cryptic, imprecise, quasi-poetic discourse by such oracular formulas as sickness is health, and health is sickness, or in the cold there is only the nature of the hot, and in the hot there is only the nature of the cold, seems like an interesting idea. But I don’t think it is an early Buddhist idea. And I don’t think there are many passages in the Sutta Pitaka that lend themselves to the interpretation that such ideas are what the Buddha had in mind by dependent origination.

Such ideas seem originally Taoist, not Buddhist.

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[quote=“DKervick, post:2, topic:5053”]
sickness is health
[/quote]Although, poison is medicine and medicine is poison, something known to people of even ancient times.[quote=“DKervick, post:2, topic:5053”]
But I don’t think it is an early Buddhist idea. And I don’t think there are many passages in the Sutta Pitaka that lend themselves to the interpretation that such ideas are what the Buddha had in mind by dependent origination.
[/quote]Yes, this quote is coming out of a context of what could be thought of as “Classical Chinese Mahāyāna”, so it has a very different way of expressing itself that is rooted, in many ways, in the later language of Mahāyāna sūtras. However, it is also technically a Madhyamaka text, based on Nāgārjuna as a model, who many scholars, now, do not necessarily think was a Mahāyāna Buddhist in the modern sense. I think that this passage is based on Nāgārjuna’s non-differentiation of samsara and nibbāna, not as realities or realms, but as prapañca. This model of looking at samsara and nibbāna is very interesting, and its relationship to EBTs is something that would be very interesting to explore.

[quote=“DKervick, post:2, topic:5053”]
If one starts with the idea that nibbana is some kind of place or realm, then the question becomes, “Where is that place? Where is the nibbanic realm?”
[/quote]I often see Mahāyānists accused of this, and in some cases I agree with the accusation of Mahāyāna reifying Nibbāna into an alternate reality, but in some cases I think that we have a tendency to read that into Mahāyāna texts because we expect it.

The world “realm” is dhātu, or “element”, and it doesn’t refer necessarily to a place.

[quote=“DKervick, post:2, topic:5053”]
Such ideas seem originally Taoist, not Buddhist.
[/quote]Very certainly a possibility.

Is this the same as saying we extinguish the fire (attain nirvana) when we see what saṃsāra really is…
Which is the same as saying that when one sees the true nature of reality as in the 3 marks of existence or paṭiccasamuppāda or whatever, then one attains nirvana?

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[quote=“DaoYaoTao, post:4, topic:5053”]
Which is the same as saying that when one sees the true nature of reality as in the 3 marks of existence or paṭiccasamuppāda or whatever, than one attains nirvana?
[/quote]I believe so, in the sense that “true nature of reality” means “lack of delusion”, but he is not saying that based on material from exclusively EBTs, which is why I decided to put this question in the Watercooler, since I think it will be interesting conversation, but it is not strictly related to EBTs, although viewing it in light of EBTs I think will be interesting.

Of course not. China is famous for incorporating the three teachings Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism into its culture.

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/cosmos/ort/teachings.htm

Here is a translation from chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching:

When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises

Thus being and non-being produce each other

Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other

Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words

They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume

http://www.taoism.net/ttc/chapters/chap02.htm

[quote=“DaoYaoTao, post:7, topic:5053”]
Here is a translation from chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching:
[/quote]There are definitely strong parallels, but I think the discourse presented is more directly related to the analysis of Nibbāna in Mūlamadhamakakārikā than yin-yan cosmology. I think the influence of yin-yang cosmology is definitely there in the language, and how the discourse is being framed, but I think it is ultimately the same discourse as in Nirvānaparīkṣā by Nāgārjuna (see here, p. 289), who was discussed here a while back as I recall with some interesting conversation.

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I take this to mean the three characteristic of phenomena are the same if applied to good or bad. The next sentence however doesn’t follow on from that (‘it is due to evil that that there is virtue’) just because a commonality has been identified (the three characteristics).

This then becomes an opportunity to equate opposites and perceived opposites.

Here is a slight paraphrase from page 304:

  1. To say of ALL dhammas that they are devoid of intrinsic nature (void of essence, void of self) is to say that there are no ultimately real entities. And since a statement can be ultimately true only by virtue of correctly describing an ultimately real entity, it follows that no possible view concerning nirvāṇa and the person who attains it can be ultimately true.

  2. It follows from the universal emptiness (void of essence, void of self) of all dhammas that there is ultimately nothing real to be cognized, and suffering is said to result from cognizing. It follows that the realization of emptiness is nirvana or the cessation of suffering.

Questions:
How can dependant conditions exist between things that are not ultimately real? How can we have dependant interactions between empty phenomena?
It would mean the dependant conditions do not ultimately exist.

Why would so much emphasis be placed on dependant origination in the suttas, if it is ultimately describing things that have no inherent essence and therefore cannot in any real sense be a condition for anything else?

If any particular feature of the language and terminology used that can be juxtaposed to the Dhamma of the EBTS, it is the appearance of the “10 realms”/“10 dhåtu” at the beginning. This schema is not congruent to the models of rebirth found in EBTs.

Another point of interest is a) the subtle shifts that took place during the development of Madhyamaka out of the other earlier schools and b) the shifts that are occurring within Madhyamaka in this passage that will much later lead to “modern” Mahāyāna.

[quote=“DaoYaoTao, post:10, topic:5053”]
How can dependant conditions exist between things that are not ultimately real? How can we have dependant interactions between empty phenomena?
It would mean the dependant conditions do not ultimately exist.
[/quote]This is from the commentary by Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura, which is a harmonization and academic analysis of Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka,& Candrakīrti’s commentaries, and as such, represents a fusional combination of the Prasaṅgika and Yogācāra interpretations of the Mūlamadhyamakakaārikā, as well as two modern academic perspectives, which are later than the text itself.

To be “ultimately real” in the setting of this text, I believe, is to have a central core unchanging eternal quality of persistence or substantiation that is not dependently arisen and exists by virtue of its own nature (think of a classical atom), that is my understanding of Madhyamaka at least, their discourses about existence are what mark them apart from other schools.

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[quote=“Mat, post:9, topic:5053”]
I take this to mean the three characteristic of phenomena are the same if applied to good or bad. The next sentence however doesn’t follow on from that (‘it is due to evil that that there is virtue’) just because a commonality has been identified (the three characteristics).

This then becomes an opportunity to equate opposites and perceived opposites.
[/quote]I always interpreted this as a statement about how “good” intentions and justifications are often the basis for evil actions, that both in fact are the same at the root, stemming from the untamed passions and mental fabrications that lead to intentions, but that is just how I have reacted to the passage in the past. I have yet to read someone qualified to speak on matters like this who shared my interpretation of that “evilness discourse” based on the line: “Turning over evils, there is virtue supporting them”. Evil is contained within the nature of intention (good or bad), and like the fire in the bamboo, one does not become the “object of fire (/evil)” until the meeting of conditions causes the phenomena to manifest.

It is a little like a fusion of Greek philosophy concerning the elements, with the Buddha’s discourses concerning the elements, with an added observation about morality, and an argument that morality functions like an “element” of its own.

I think at least.

What was known to them was that certain substances could be salubrious in some circumstances (e.g. when taken in a small dose) and toxic in other circumstances (e.g. when taken in a large dose). But what follows from this is not that poison is medicine and medicine is poison, but rather that being salubrious or being toxic are extrinsic properties of the substances in question (like, say, their weight, which is dependent upon the strength of the gravitational field that affects them) and not intrinsic properties (like, say, their density).

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[quote=“Dhammanando, post:14, topic:5053, full:true”]

What was known to them was that certain substances could be salubrious in some circumstances (e.g. when taken in a small dose) and toxic in other circumstances (e.g. when taken in a large dose). But what follows from this is not that poison is medicine and medicine is poison, but rather that being salubrious or being toxic are extrinsic properties of the substances in question (like, say, their weight, which is dependent upon the strength of the gravitational field that affects them) and not intrinsic properties (like, say, their density).
[/quote]My apologies, I did not mean to imply that all things “poisonous” and adverse to health will always necessarily also have medicinal properties if administered differently, but merely that many poisonous materials can also function medicinally, which is something that informs the literatures of some ancient cultures, the poison and medicine example is also given after the section I adapted in the source text.

But this is precisely what I understood you to mean and it’s this that I’m disagreeing with. In your present post you speak of poisonous materials [that] can also function medicinally, but these might with equal legitimacy be referred to as medicinal materials that can also be poisonous. Which of the two would be more likely to be said would presumably hinge on what a given society’s more usual employment of the substance would be. If arsenic, for example, were more usually employed for treating syphillis than for poisoning rats then people would be wont to regard it as medicine that can be poisonous rather than as a poison that can be medicinal.

[quote=“Dhammanando, post:16, topic:5053”]
In your present post you speak of poisonous materials [that] can also function medicinally, but these might with equal legitimacy be referred to as medicinal materials that can also be poisonous.
[/quote]Yes, I agree with this too. In the given example poison and medicine are functions, not intrinsic natures, or rather, can be potentialities of a given substance that manifest if employed under certain conditions.

Do you think that Zhiyi is reifying potentialities into more than potentialities here? I am very persuaded by a lot of Zhiyi’s philosophy, but there are also many elements of his philosophy that are strange, bizarre, and occasionally troubling (such as his positing of evil-potentiality within Buddhahood).

I am wondering if you think Zhiyi is reifying potentialities into something other than potentialities, because I have occasionally wondered if the Buddha-nature doctrine itself tends towards (but isn’t itself necessarily) reification of a base potentiality that most Buddhism shares and acknowledges, Mahāyāna seeing itself as the sole holder of this doctrine on account of Theravāda’s comparative lack a tendency to use language to possibly reify potentialities (such as Buddha-potentiality/Awakening-potentiality) into realities (Buddha-nature?).

Passages like the adapted one in the OP from Zhiyi and the Nāgārjuna quote from the subsequent discussion always remind me of another non-EBT, Kv 9.2, addressing the claim[quote]that the Deathless as an object of thought is a “fetter.”[/quote]

I agree. Reminds me of Taoist texts I’ve read like Zhuangzi.