Red Pine (translation and comentary): The Diamond Sutra

Before getting into the linguistic puzzle that is The Diamond Sutra, I feel obliged to mention that the level of scholarship displayed by Red Pine in this edition is without peer.  Not only has he translated the text in a way that seems to capture the essence of the Buddha's message, and supplemented that translation with extensive and credible notation, not only has he added his own insightful and transparent commentary, but he ahs gone to the additional step of selecting and compiling the commentary of the very best Buddhist thinkers of history.  This last step is one of both scholarship and humility, and the edition as a whole seems to be enough to have taken any man a lifetime to put together.  I am agape at the amount of work and sagacity that this volume represents.

Nonetheless, the editor, outstanding as he is, is not the real star of this text.  Out of nearly five hundred pages, only the first 27 are the sutra itself.  It is that dense, that rich, it took that much explication to make it even remotely accessible.  The text centers upon a central puzzle, which I perceived to be slightly semantic in nature.  The Buddha repeatedly tells Subhuti X is not X. Thus is it called X.  For example, in chapter 9 he says "Those who return no more do not think, 'I have attained the goal of returning no more.'  And why not? Bhagavan, they do not find any such dharma as 'returning no more.'  Thus are they said to 'return no more'." Again in 10 he says "The transformation of a world, Subhuti, the 'transformation of a world' is said by the Tathagata to be no transformation.  Thus is it called 'the transformation of a world." 

The first part of this argument presents no problem.  The Buddha is merely saying that what we thought is real, turns out to not exist at all.   That which we thought was a return turns out to be no return, and that which we thought of as a transformation turns out to be no transformation at all.  But the second part of the argument, "thus is it called X" is a bit of a problem.  If it does not exist, why is attention drawn again to the term itself?  Furthermore, why is the conjunctive "thus" used to indicate that the terminology is not just a semantic trick, but an entailment of its nonexistence?  The Buddha goes on to use this same structure in some form for nearly every concept that he mentions.  He must be doing more than merely drawing our attention to the fundamental nothingness of certain dharmas--indeed, this makes sense, as Subhuti already was viewed as an expert on nothingness at the beginning of this sutra.  The Buddha must be taking Subhuti (and us as his proxies) past the idea of nothingness into something more.

And this is where I am grateful to the attentions of the editor.  He doesn't seem to struggle with the seemingly incomprehensibility of these statements as I did, but the combination of his own commentary with the included commentary of centuries of other Buddhist thinkers unlocked it for me a bit around chapter 19.  In speaking of a body of merit, Buddha again employs the familiar structure: ". . .'a body of merit' is spoken of by the Tathagata as no body.  Thus is it called a 'body of merit'."  But while he usually stops at theat, here he adds the additional information "Subhuti, if there were a body of merit, the Tathagata would not have spoken of a body of merit as a 'body of merit'."  Aha!  The puzzle untangles a little.  Bodies of merit, returning no more, transformation of a world, do not exist.  But here tThe Buddha reveals that the "Thus is X called X" structure is added to that fact to  reveal how we know that it is true.  We know that X is not X because X is called X.  If X existed, there would be no way to speak of it. 

Which raises the question of why mention it all?  If the very speaking of something is evidence of its nonexistence, what is the point of any sutra, let alone this one?  Red Pine's commentary put a pin in the crux of the question:  "Not only can a thought of enlightenment not be found, neither does a body of merit exist.  And yet the Buddha speaks of a body of merit . . . Rather he insists on it, and he insists on it precisely because it does not exist" (322).  The perception of emptiness is not the ultimate enlightenment.  If it were, Subhuti would have finished his path before this conversation.  Rather, the key is to perceive both emptiness and non emptiness.  "The dharma eye sees beyond emptiness to what advances liberation," as Pine puts it. 

The truly enlightened one perceives both the emptiness and the non emptiness of reality.  What is real?  Is a shadow real?  It has no substance.  It is merely a trick of the light, a perception of something that doesn't exist.  And yet it exists.  We can says that a shadow exists.  It is neither real nor not real.  And as any seemingly solid object is merely an illusion caused by the way atoms and light meet, as the things we think we see or touch--but do not really--are merely convenient mental constructs, so too is any dharma that can be spoken: neither true nor not true.  Pine quotes Chi-Fo as saying "neither atoms of dust nor worlds are real.  If atoms of dust wree real, they couldn't be combined to form a world.  If worlds were real, they couldn't be separated into atoms of dust" (414).  Both the things we perceive, and the atoms that seem to constitute them, on closer examination "turn out to be rather arbtrary views of reality founded on nothing more than linguistic conventions,  which are themselves the detritus of previously established arbitrary views" (420).  So is it true of any dharma the Buddha has spoken, and by extension any philosophy, creed, or religion that has ever existed. 

But the key is not to abandon those dharmas!  The Subhhutis of the world discover that everything is pretty much an illusion, especially things associated with the dharma teachings of organized religion.  And so they become free thinkers, scoffing at the idea that there is any meaning to life at all, and contenting themselves to live in a manner that they deem virtuous.  There is nothing wrong with this way of living, but it is a mistake to think that it represents enlightenment.  True enlightenment comes from the knowledge that all dharmas are not only empty, they are also not empty.  The fact that we cannot express the something which exists in an above us does not mean that it does not exist.  Enlightenment comes from making peace with the fact that everything we think we know about reality is neither true nor not true. God, Subhuti, "God" is spoken of by the Buddha as no God.  Thus is it called "God".  Subhuti, if there were a God, the Buddha would not have spoken of God as "God".