From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 26 2004 - 10:27:43 BST
Hi Scott
> Paul [to Ham]:
> No it isn't. It would, however, be illogical to state that Quality is
> everything and, if it can't be its own source, is therefore also not
> everything. (Although I think there is Indian logic which permits
this,
> but this logic is usually used to point away from itself to an
> alternative understanding. I'm sure Scott will correct me :-))
[Scott:] Naturally :-). The correction I would make is that the logic is
not used to point away from itself to an alternative understanding. For
one thing, in the item under investigation it points to the
impossibility of any understanding, in the sense of something one can
capture discursively. But also, it does not want to point away from
itself, but to keep one's attention on the something and its discursive
incomprehensibleness.
Paul:
Perhaps, but then incomprehensibility as an "understanding" or some kind
of goal is precisely an alternative to a logical understanding, as logic
is supposed to be entirely comprehensible, it is supposed to produce and
guarantee comprehension. Although you may say that Indian logic is
supposed to produce and guarantee incomprehension.
Either way, I think Indian logic shows the limits of conceptual logic
and the non-conceptual "understanding" that lies beyond it, or perhaps,
within its own workings. Logic can't work without division, but
strangely it can show division to be illogical.
As I understand :-) it, Nagarjuna used his logic to prove that nothing
that can be captured in a conceptual logical formulation can have an
inherent self-nature because it does not exist in isolation from
something else, everything depends on something else, e.g. its opposite,
for its identity i.e. all is, in itself, "empty." This goes on and on so
even existence and non-existence are seen as empty (this is the first
"truth") until eventually "emptiness" itself is shown to be empty, and
enlightenment occurs.
Put into MOQ terms, we could say that all differentiated static patterns
are empty of inherent existence, that they have a conditioned and
impermanent nature. The enlightened recognizes that this understanding
itself is static, and therefore conditioned and impermanent. In other
words, the conceptual "staticness" of the static patterns is itself a
static pattern, a conceptual differentiation. Following this logic, the
conceptualised static quality and the conceptually unknown Dynamic
Quality can not be distinguished for then they would be related to each
other as conceptual opposites. Thus, the second truth of Nagarjuna has
the consequence that this whole static world is ultimately identical to
Dynamic Quality, that there is really no division between static quality
and Dynamic Quality. Quite simply, if Dynamic Quality is undivided, it
can't be divided from static quality!
The first truth of Nagarjuna teaches us to become free of the illusion
that the static world is itself real, while the second truth teaches us
that it is real after all, not in the sense in which we tend to think it
is, but in the sense it always has been.
Gotta love those Buddhists!
Paul
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